


Magicae

by Eventide932



Series: Magicae [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Adventure, Confusion, Constructive Criticism Welcome, Dimension Travel, Dragons, Fantasy, Gen, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I'm Bad At Tagging, Magic, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Time Shenanigans, World Travel, You Have Been Warned, magical powers, my first work pretty much ever, the squad goes on adventures
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-20
Updated: 2020-07-18
Packaged: 2021-02-13 17:01:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 36
Words: 46,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21497476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eventide932/pseuds/Eventide932
Summary: What if your home had been ripped away from you? add in the fact that it's because of some magical world sucking you in and you're just like us.I was unfortunate enough to fall asleep one regular day, and wake up in a place where everyone said magic was real. all of our stories started out somewhat like this. one day, we were normal, the next we were in a magical world with powers, dragons, goblins who try to eat you, evil queens possessed by the wind, and even a few dinosaurs.then, you uncover a secret plot from the dragons that makes getting home 60 times more urgent, but 10 times harder. it would have been all well and good if it was as easy to get home as it had been to get there, but no. thousands of earthlings have come to this place, through various ways, but none of them have been able to find a way back.we are determined to be the first.
Relationships: Minor or Background Relationship(s), Original Female Character/Original Male Character
Series: Magicae [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1572796
Kudos: 1





	1. Magicae

* * *

#  Part 1 home is nowhere to be seen

#  Prologue 

My violin was clenched tightly to my chest as I played the song for the 6th time. If I didn’t do good my parents might never let me play it again, in favor of other things that they thought would make me happier.

_ “You don’t want to be a musician honey, they don’t get that much money,” _ I could almost hear my mother say,  _ “wouldn’t you rather be a doctor like your mother?”  _ my father would agree

_ No,  _ I would always answer because none of what they thought would make me happy.

I played the last note and played it all back to myself on the sound recorder that I had saved money for, for 3 years. To my relief, it sounded much better than the last time. I put my recorder back in one of the pockets of my jacket, put my violin back in its case, and rushed to school.

After school, I practiced more, but for some reason, I couldn’t concentrate, I closed my eyes and breathed in and out in an effort to focus my brain, the calming motion of my even breathing combined with my problems with going to sleep on time… you get the picture. I drifted off to sleep. I had no idea that after that moment, my life would never be the same.

#  Chapter 1 Magicae

Dreamcaster

...I awoke hazily from my dream, my mind clawing itself out of the depths of my subconscious. Groggily I opened my eyes and gazed at my surroundings. I was lying on a quite uncomfortable rock overlooking the ocean. 

I stretched and stood up. Where was I? Suddenly I was hyper-aware of the ocean below and panicked. 

I lived miles away from any large body of water! How could it be possible that I was so close to the ocean? I searched around desperately for any sort of clue, any indicator of why I was here. I couldn’t find any, so I started walking reluctantly inland. Wherever I was, I concluded that that direction would be more likely to bring me home.

As I walked I thought about how I could have gotten here. I didn’t remember anything about coming to a beach, let alone falling unconscious. My mind grasped at all the possibilities considering them and discarding them just as fast. Could I have come here, to a deserted beach, and somehow forgotten? No, that made no sense, I thought that I would remember something like that! 

That line of thought had made me realize something, what was the last thing I remembered? 

Nothing. I had no idea. I knew who I was, my name was Kayla Ventura, I was an average 14-year-old Girl from Cheyenne Wyoming, with three younger, unnecessarily annoying siblings. Where were they? I wondered for a moment. I knew that I loved music and that I had a year's worth of violin practice. But I had no idea what I had been doing yesterday, or even a week ago. I had memories but the more recent the memory was, the more gaps there were. 

Panic rose inside me, and I began to walk faster. I told myself that the sooner that I found people, the sooner I could figure out what to do, where I was, and how I had gotten there. The rocks on the path got bigger as I moved inland, the sand turned to gravel to large fist-sized stones, then it evened out, turned to rich brown soil, that in my amateur gardening opinion, would be perfect for planting in.

Eventually, I came across civilization. There was farmland and after a while, there were houses as I drew nearer to a large cluster of them. I spotted people, and the houses looked sturdy, nice, and well used but they didn’t, however, look modern. 

_ Well, at least there are humans, _ I thought,  _ no matter their level of technology _ . 

I shook myself. Who was I kidding? If these people were like that, they probably had no access to the outside world. I began to walk back to the ocean, suddenly realizing I had no idea what to say, and getting unnecessarily shy about that. I walked back, but I had gotten close enough to the people that I could see the features of their faces, and undoubtedly they could see mine too. 

I began shying away from people when they started staring at me. Soon I figured out why. Everyone else was wearing old clothing. well... It wasn’t old clothing exactly, but it wasn’t modern. But I had no idea why they were like that. Finally, I was almost gone and I was walking towards the farmland. But I heard someone call out from behind a tree.

“Hey, you come here!” she said. “You don’t want to be seen!” 

I walked slowly towards the voice, I had no idea who it was but maybe they knew why I was here. So I pressed onward.

“Who are you?” I asked warily once I was next to the voice, though outside the shadows of the tall tree. A hand grabbed my arm and yanked me down into the shade. I let out a faint yelp, but my mouth was covered quickly.

“Shhh, come with me,” the person whispered at me, tugging me through the farmland.

We walked out of town down a long, dusty road and towards a petite little farmhouse. Once we were out of the shadows, I was able to see my friend, or maybe captor? I wasn’t sure what to refer to her as. 

She was a young adult. She had short, reddish hair, freckled skin, and was wearing a vibrant purple dress. Finally, we arrived at a house, it was in the center of the farm. She uncovered my mouth.

“Sorry about that. I didn’t want to gather attention.” she said, “My name is Cada, what’s yours?”

“Um, my name is Kayla… So I was wondering where here is how did I get here, and also why did you drag me here?” I asked.

Cada laughed. “Oh right, I forgot you don’t know,” she said. “I was confused at first too. This is not Earth, this is another world. The inhabitants call it Magicae. I am originally from Earth too.”

I just stared at my new friend, trying to wrap my head around it. Another world? That would explain the strangeness, but how could I have gotten here? Also, why did Cada drag me there? Finally, I decided that Cada must be crazy, there was absolutely no way.

“Yes, I know how shocking it can be at first,” Cada said opening the door and dragged me in.. 

“Oh Cada, you're back!” a boy said.

“Ordulf, I found another one,” Cada said pointing to me. a boy looked out the door and I just stood there with a confused expression still etched on my face. I nearly laughed at his name, what did Ordulf even mean?

“I’m Kayla.” I said, “I am really confused about all this. But there is absolutely no way that she is telling the truth about this being another world. Also, why did you drag me here?”

“Oh, she is another one. I am from Earth too.” Ordulf said pausing “Wait what’s your tribe?”

“My what?” I asked, mildly offended that no one was answering my questions. and still confused that Ordulf was going along with Cada’s lie.

“Your tribe.” he said, “Oh right you just got here. show us the back of your dominant hand.”

“Oh um, okay?” I said reluctantly, turning my right hand around to face him I didn’t see the point in this but I decided to play along for now since no one was telling me anything. Ordulf smiled.

“Well, that will fit right in here,” Cada said. I turned my hand to face myself and saw a mark. It looked like majestic swirls curving and twirling around a diamond shape. But the oddest of all, it looked like it had been there for a long time, like a scar or a birthmark. I thought it was odd I hadn't seen it before if it had been there for a long time.

“Oh also if you are going to fit in here you need a Magicae name to go by,” Cada said

“Name?” I asked, why would I need another name? I already had a perfectly good one. “Why am I even here? Why do I need another name? Why do you crazy people think that anything you are saying makes sense?”

“Kayla, you are in another world, I am sorry that everything we are trying to use to explain to you makes no sense, but it makes no sense to us either.”

“What are you even talking about? Why would I be in another world? And why did you randomly drag me here!”

“Wait we are trying to explain to you, you are on a different planet, there’s magic here, we want you to understand-” Cada said, but I was having none of that, I cut her off mid-sentence.

“Then why aren’t you answering my questions? And why should I believe that we aren’t on Earth, for all I know you crazy people kidnapped me in my sleep and put me on a weird island or something, do you know how weird that would be for someone to do? I LIVE IN WYOMING for Pete’s sake, I must be miles from home, and you Crazy people are not helping with your dragging me to this broken-down farmhouse and telling me that I am even farther from home than I actually am!” 

I turned around from the crazy weirdos who insisted I was on another planet, a flicker of doubt crossed my mind, what if what they said was true? What if I could never get home? But I pushed it from my mind, walked out of the small farmhouse, and slammed the door behind me for good measure. 

After that was over I ran across the farmland that belonged to the farmhouse that the weirdos were in and escaped into the fading daylight from the strange people who insisted that this wasn’t earth.

Back at the farmhouse, Cada stared at the slammed door, she sat down.

Ordulf looked out the small window beside the door.

“Aren’t you going to go after her?” he asked Cada.

“I think I’ll let her experience stuff for herself at first. Maybe I’ll send Cecily or Paxton out to make sure she doesn’t get eaten by a dragon. But I know she won’t listen to us until she knows we’re telling the truth.”

“Um…”

“What is it?”

“Where is Wyoming again?” Ordulf asked.

“Didn’t Cecily go over this with you last week?” Cada asked.

“Well… there are 50 of them and I’m not even from America, why do I need to know them?” Ordulf asked.

Cada shook her head. “I’m not from the US either and I learned them.” Cada stood up from her chair, “well, I have to send Paxton then, cause’ evidently you still need Cecily for her geography skills.”

“Can I go instead?” Ordulf asked pleadingly, “I can stay hidden better than both of them.”

“Let’s talk about this later, first finish making dinner, it’s your day again and I don’t want Paxton to make it for you like last week.”

I trekked the opposite direction that I had come from, away from the ocean, away from the farm with the crazy people. 

I tried not to think about what they had said. It made no sense, yes, but I was afraid that if I thought about it too much then I would start to think they were right.

The grassy farmland eventually ran into a river, I noticed the sun was going down, and a feeling of dread overcame me. I had hoped, however dumb that hope maybe, that I would reach somewhere before it got dark. I only regretted running from the weirdos a little bit.

That little bit was enough that I was beating myself up mentally about giving up a nice soft bed.

I saw two large birds fly overhead, I very much hoped that they weren’t out to eat me. I wondered if there was anything else that could eat me out here. I had never slept outside before.

Once the river came close, I could tell that I could not cross it. It was too wide and I didn’t have a bridge. Plus I wasn’t nearly desperate enough to try swimming it, and I didn’t even know if crossing the river would help me. So I sat down beside the riverbank and tried to find the most comfortable patch of dirt.

That was when my stomach growled.  _ When was the last time I ate? _

I sat up and looked around. Maybe there were some berry bushes near the river. After searching till the sun was no longer visible, I finally went back to the dirt patch and curled up without food. I arranged the hood of my jacket into a makeshift pillow, it was too cold to take off my hoodie and just sleep on it. That first night I slept very uncomfortably.

The next morning I awoke on the hard surface of the dirt. I felt drowsy from my hard time sleeping on the ground. I had woken up at least 10 times that night, this was the first time the sun was up when I woke up. I was tired of battling with sleep so I sat up drowsily. my mouth was dry, I moved my tongue around, recirculating the moisture. Then I stood up and walked towards the river, knelt beside it, and splashed water over my face. 

I blinked the water out of my eyes and gazed at the river, was it safe to drink? I thought maybe I had heard somewhere that flowing water was safe, but I could easily be mistaken and didn’t want to get sick.

I traveled downstream following the river. My stomach growling all the while

After about midday, I got hungrier and hungrier. I repressed the urge to eat random weeds and hope they weren’t poisonous. My stomach slowly started growling louder and louder over the course of the day. 

I slept in a similar fashion as the night before.

In the middle of the night, I awoke and found that I felt someone watching me. My stomach was just as empty as it had been before I went to bed. I sat up drowsily. 

“Who’s there?” I asked fearfully, thinking of hungry wolves and maybe bears too.

The bushes rustled and out came something that looked human, but ugly, short, and with greenish skin and pointy ears. I looked around me as what I could only assume to be goblins emerged from the bushes. 

“We are the Goblins of the Gobble hoard! Why do you trespass on our land!” the first one I had spotted said.

“What?”

“I said, we are the Goblins of the Gobble H-”

“No I get it, but Goblins don’t exist.”

“You trespass on our land! You insult us! Brothers, we will have a meal of human this evening!”

“Wait... what?” I shouted as ten Goblins pounced on me, “Help!” I screamed, then I noticed where one of the goblins hit me was throbbing, I could tell there would be a bruise soon.

I froze in terror as the Goblins pinned me down and started tying me up.

Suddenly as I was looking at the first Goblin, I saw an arrow protruding from his chest. He fell over. I looked at him in shock, so did the other goblins. 

After the shock wore off, the goblins turned to me, evidently thinking I had killed their leader.

Before they could do anything, another goblin fell over dead. Another arrow was sticking out of his chest.

A third arrow whisked past me, scratching my cheek, this was the first one I had seen in the air. It hit a goblin behind me. 

The remaining 7 goblins looked wildly around searching for what was killing them, the ones kneeling beside me, tying me up, all but one stood up and helped to look. 

Out of nowhere a boy came through he was wearing a strange feathery white cape he had very light blonde hair and clear brown eyes, he picked me up, and without looking back ran off from the Goblins. One of the goblins gave chase 

The boy was mostly dragging me at this point. He wasn’t that muscular, and I, embarrassingly, wasn't that light. I couldn’t really help because I was still tied up and my mind was still crowded by confusion from all that had just happened. 

The boy dragged me along and after a little bit of resting and catching his breath, he untied me. 

Once I was untied, he lay down again, still breathing heavily. That was when I noticed he had a bow slung across his back. It was him. He had saved me from the things I refused to believe we're goblins.

“What happened back there?” I asked him. “What were those things?” I was hoping there was another explanation.

“Those were Goblins. Even an unbeliever like you could figure it out.” he sat up again.

“Unbeliever?”

“You don’t believe in what is right in front of you, the magic of this place is hard to accept at first for some of us. I get it. But when something so obvious as that happens, it tends to make us more open to the truth.”

“Why is everyone here so insistent that this isn’t Earth?” I asked him.

“I think that once you’ve been here for as long as I have, or as long as Cada has, you start to put all the pieces together.” I looked at him in annoyance as I realized he was sent by Cada.

“What would you say if I tell you I still don’t believe any of you? Those ‘Goblins’ could have just been midgets or something.” 

“I’d say that I can’t make you except the truth, but when stuff like this happens you’d be stupid to cling to your ideas.” the boy looked me up and down. “Are you hurt?”

I patted myself down. I got to my arm where the goblin had knocked me over and didn’t even check, it was obviously hurt, I only found the soon-to-be bruise and the scratch on my face from the last arrow

“Just this bruise,” I said.

He nodded in reassurance, “I’m Paxton, Cecily should be here any minute now, she had to get rid of the other goblins so they don’t follow us.” he flicked his fingers and a single snowflake glittered down to the ground. It melted a few seconds later, but I was entranced.

“How does that work?” I asked him.

“I don’t know how magic works, ask the person who invented it. Oh wait, you don’t believe in it.”

“Was that actual magic, or are you fooling with me?” I asked.

“Would you like me to turn you into a block of ice and see if you believe me then?”

I weighed my options, I didn’t particularly want to be encased in ice, and if he could do that I was sure I would see it sometime. “No, not really.”

He shrugged, “that’s what I thought, Cecily said the same thing when I offered, so maybe it has something to do with being able to feel the cold.”

I stared at him. “You can’t feel the cold?”

“Not since I popped up on Magicae.” he said, “oh that’s Cecily.”

I looked over my shoulder to see a dark-skinned girl 17 or 18 years old arrive in the clearing, she also had a weird feathery cape, just like Paxton. She groaned and stretched her back. “Goblins are the  _ worst _ I had to shock each of them at least 3 times before they left!” I watched in surprise as she stretched and what I had previously assumed to be a cape lifted from her back to stretch as well. They were  _ wings _ ! I turned back to Paxton and saw that the ‘cape’ he had was also a pair of wings.

“You have wings?” I exclaimed

Cecily looked at me with obvious annoyance, “and your point is? This world is full of oddities, I doubt your powers are any less strange than ours.”

I stayed silent.

Paxton stepped between us “Whatever, follow me, we’re going home.”

I snorted. If ‘home’ was that tiny farm I didn’t think I wanted to go, but I doubted I could live very long out here unaided with goblins on the loose. Or at all, I thought ruefully of my starvation.

“Okay, I’ll come with you,” I said. “But that doesn’t mean I’ll like it.” my stomach growled loud enough to hear. 

Cecily laughed, “it’s the middle of the night, plus our friend here is starving, Paxton, you evidently need to work on your leadership skills.” I blinked in shock, Cecily’s annoyance at me a few minutes ago seemed to have evaporated.

By midday the next day, we arrived back at the farm.

I felt awkward being there after my little tantrum a few days ago. Once the farmhouse was within view, I saw Cada, Ordulf, and another boy waiting for us.

We went up to the house.

Cecily looked at Cada for a moment as if contemplating talking to her.

“Um Cada I know you said we should stop trying, but… Kayla hasn’t had the chance-.”

“I know what I said. It still stands, if any of you want to keep trying you can. But I think we should stay put.” Cada said

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“We’ll tell you later. Who wants lunch!” Cada said. The sudden subject change was alarming and made me wonder exactly what they had been talking about.

Lunch was cheese sandwiches and some fruits from the garden. I was mildly disappointed that there was no pineapple, but I never wanted to starve for a full 24 hours ever again.

Raymont, the other boy, ate ravenously through the food, he was the first one done, he barely took part in the conversation at the table and excused himself early on.

Paxton took more part in the conversation and kept figuring out clever ways to turn the conversation towards me. Little questions about me while everyone else sort of talked about random things.

Cecily mostly sat out of the conversation, and I couldn’t help noticing that Paxton was trying just as hard to include Cecily as he was to include myself. It made me wonder if Cecily was almost as new to these people as I was.

Ordulf was trying to take part in the conversation but every so often someone would say something and he would pause as if trying to remember what it was.

But I didn’t care very much about the random conversation at the table. What I really wanted to know was when I could go home.

“So Kayla, do you have any urgent questions about this place?” Paxton asked at one point, sensing an opportunity, I pounced on it.

“When can I go home,” I said it more as a statement than a question.

Cecily and Paxton winced, Ordulf looked at Cada, Raymont was still gone and Cada just stared at me. It seemed like a sore topic.

“We can’t get you home,” Cada said. “We tried with ourselves many times, believe me.”

“Well, I never tried.”

“Trying has lost us many great people. Getting home is impossible, you are looking at the remnants of a failed effort. If you want to try, be my guest, but don’t drag the rest of us down with you.” Cada stomped off in the direction of the basement.

“Sore topic?”

“You have no idea,” Paxton said.


	2. the dragons

#  Chapter 2 the dragons

A man was trekking through the snowy caps of the ever high mountains, the back of his coat was inscribed with the symbol of the sizemagicians. A square with a bigger hollow square beside it.

The man crouched in the snow and muttered under his breath at the cold. His hand burst into flames and he brought it to himself in an effort to keep warm. He stayed like that for a minute as he waited for something.

The sound of loud wingbeats could be heard nearby as a large icy dragon took off 

His hand went out and the man continued.

He came to a large cave and drew a sword that had been hidden beneath his coat. The man crouched outside the cave and peered inside in suspicion. A low growl could be heard from inside the icy cave.

The man quietly walked inside, stopping every few feet and listening ahead, in this manner he snuck up on the ice dragon.

After a long and bloody battle, the ice dragon collapsed in death. It’s slayer looting it’s hoard only to find a pitiful pile of gems and three icy eggs.

The slayer hurriedly loaded up the Dragon eggs and gems so he could get out before the dragon’s mate returned.

He was too late. He hugged the third egg to his chest as he was leaving the cave but was interrupted by a larger ice dragon. Once it saw the eggs it let out a roar of anguish which probably meant“No!” and attacked the dragonslayer. Not long after, the three eggs were back where they had been before and their father was disparagingly disposing of the human who had killed his mate.

The moment the ice dragon died, the dragon queen roared in sadness.

The next day the queen of dragons met with her council; they met in a circular room each dragon sat at their designated spot. There were eight dragons in the council counting the queen. They were each representing a different group of dragons. Pōhaku was of the flightless dragons of the tunnels, Cvet was of the peaceful forest dragons, Lahab was of the fire breathing clans, Kūki was representing the high-place dwelling sky dragons, Farraige was from the water-loving sea dragons, Exspiravit was from the nearly extinct poison clans, and then there was Yuèliàng the queen's daughter, of the mountain peak ice dragons, last in the circle was queen Xīng herself.

The council began.

“You have all, most assuredly been wondering at why I have begun this session. It has come to my sight that, in recent times the dragon killers have been hastening their attempts to vanquish us. I propose a solution. Migration.”

The council of dragons silently thought about this.

“Would it not be better to vanquish them, and claim all of the otherlands!” Lahab exclaimed. “We could kill them all and halt dragonslaying for eternity!”

“I have thought about this and though it may appear to be the firmest and most desirable outcome, the dragon killers have stolen magic as strong as our own and in the event that we take the path of destruction, we would lose many of our finest dragons. The cost would be great, and the destruction of this world would be possible.”

“What of the idea of burning them?” Kūki asked Xīng. Xīng sighed in exasperation, why couldn’t her council just accept her idea? Wouldn’t it all go faster if they all just did what she said? No, Xīng thought ruefully, that’s what they’re here for, to question everything I do and make sure it’s the best thing for everyone. But why couldn’t Kūki figure that out himself?

“Many of the humans possess the magic that would result in immunity to flames,” Xīng explained calmly.

“Why would we run from our greatest foes?” Lahab exclaimed, “just because in the last thousand years they have gained magic? That would not be a problem if your--”

Queen Xīng looked at him menacingly, oh no not this again. “you were saying?”

“Oh um forgive me for bringing up your traitorous mate,” Lahab said hastily. Queen Xīng frowned, Why did he have to say it?

“If we do decide to kill all of them may we spare a small amount? For not all of them are heartless, I have met a few who had the ability to speak our tongue, from their magic. They have the ability to be peaceful or vengeful, like unto Dragons.” Cvet said. “May we only exterminate the vengeful ones?”

“Yes Cvet, I thank you for your wisdom,” Xīng said. “But have you thought that it may be that that is the thought track that led one of my own astray so long ago?” Lahab may not have a problem with it but there is no way Xīng would openly mention him, especially in front of Yuè, after all, that he did, and how much like him Xīng’s daughter was.

Cvet looked down at the ground, “I see…”

“In the event that we migrate, where would we venture to?” Farraige asked with a hope that it would distract the others from the sour topic. Xīng inwardly thanked him. “Where would we go that would suit all of us?”

“I have thought about it, none of the planets holding magic would be available to us, for our cousins live on them and they may not take kindly to us invading their space, our own planet has nowhere else that would be lacking in the dragon killers, the day past I spoke with Pōhaku once I figured we must migrate, and we realized that the only place either of us could think to migrate to would be the world of no magic, it would be fantastic for the Humans that reside there have not slain dragons for many hundreds of rounds.”

“Of course! We could slay them all and take their lands!” exclaimed Lahab. “It would be glorious! When will we go?” Xīng cringed would it though? How many dragons would be lost if they took the path of destruction?

“The day after the end of the round-”

“So close? But what of the unhatched soon children?” Cvet asked in a worried tone before Xīng could finish, “would it not be prudent to wait?”

“That would be six moons…” Farraige said.

“I am not finished! Have you forgotten who you decided as queen!” Xīng roared. The other dragons fell silent.

“The day after the end of the round, we will send scouts out to discover places for us to stay! Six moons past that, we will migrate! By then any egg mothers will have laid, and most of the soon children will have hatched.” Xīng finished and let the council think about it.

“So it’s settled then?” Yuèliàng asked,

“It is, not it’s, but yes, it is time to vote,” Xīng said. “Those of the council who support the migration to the no magic world!”

A chorus of agreeable hissing came from all the gathered dragons.

“I see that it is unanimous!” Xīng said

“Ok,” said Yuèliàng, “can I leave now?”

“May I, Yuèliàng.”

“Ok then, may I leave this boring meeting now?” Yuèliàng said in a mocking tone, the others of the council looked at Xīng in sympathy, no one wanted a daughter like Yuèliàng at this moment.

Xīng let out a breath. “You may.”


	3. getting places

Chapter 3 getting places

I closed my eyes that night in a spare room in the basement, after a few minutes I opened them again, restless. I moved around alot, trying to get comfortable, but for some reason, even though this bed was millions of times more comfortable than what I had slept on the past few days, I could not get to sleep.

Finally I got up, still in the night gown Cecily had lent me, and went exploring, everyone else was asleep, Cada had made sure of that, herding them all to bed like a mother wanting them to get sleep, she had explained that she had learned early on that tired teenagers were angry, grouchy, and inefficient, teenagers, and getting everyone to GO TO SLEEP! Had temporarily taken her out of the state that my insistence that we should go home had left her in, not wanting to talk to anyone just sitting there grouching about.

I tiptoed through the empty halls of the basement. I looked into every door that I was sure didn’t lead to someone's room, and I stumbled upon at least 3 closets full of spare blankets, and eventually I took myself exploring upstairs, there wasn’t much upstairs, everyone lived in the basement and there wasn’t even that much room for someone to sleep if they decided to try their luck upstairs.

The only thing I hadn't seen the first time I was upstairs, was a door that looked like it belonged to a closet, the door was very hard to pull open because the locking mechanism seemed to have a tendency to lock and unlock itself whenever one messed with the doorknob. So finally five minutes later I stood in an office. There were writing utensils on the side and lot’s of paper with notes on it. There was a book on the floor. It was very dull, and I almost didn’t see it, but I kicked it when I tried to get a closer look at the notes. So I bent down to pick it up.

I picked up the book and found that it was called, _ how to lead _. I puzzled over it for a moment, finding it was very well worn, and had various sections bookmarked or dog-eared.

After I was done looking at it I glanced back over at the notes. There was _ a lot _ of paper, so I picked the top one up, which had slightly less words on it, and read a random sentence.

Kayla is similar to Cecily in her will to try again. She is stubborn and took longer than any of us to accept magic. Kayla may have accepted it earlier than I think, but persisted in her endeavor to prove something… she could have had trouble fitting in with people at home?

I blinked, someone was analyzing me? I took a look at the rest of the stack and found that there were multiple sections. Each where whoever was taking these notes analyzed a different person, there was only one person not in here. Cada. she must be the one writing this, but why? I thought about how Cada acted. Was she secretly nicer than she let on, but had built a wall around herself after what happened when she tried to get home? Was it so horrible that it was necessary to have to act the way she did?

I put the papers back the way I had found them and left the office. Whatever Cada was doing in here it was none of my business.

I closed the door quietly and fiddled with the handle enough for it to re-lock, then I snooped around some more, finding the food storage, the back door, and another closet.

Finally I decided to go outside, it would be cold, but I just wanted to know if the stars were different, I couldn’t bring myself to check when I had been sleeping underneath them.

I stepped outside and hoped that it wasn’t a cloudy night, or that the moon wasn’t full, if it did that here at least. I was met by a sky full of more stars than I had ever seen in my life. The little pinpricks were brighter than I had ever seen, and I looked up in wonder at the beautiful constellations they must make. I wasn’t someone who looked at stars often at home, so I had no idea where to look for the big dipper or anything. 

After some searching I concluded that the big dipper wasn’t there because I couldn’t find any other constellations. Eventually I went back inside. Finaly I came back to the spare room I was staying in and went to sleep.

In the morning at breakfast I was prepared to argue with Cada some more, so I was surprised when Cada didn’t leave again when I asked how to get home for the second time.

Cada took a deep breath as if trying to stay calm.

“You can try if you want to, but the first problem would be getting off this island.” Cada said.

“What do you mean?” I asked, becoming worried, “Can’t I just use a boat.”

“Because, there's a coral reef all the way around it.” Cada explained, the others stayed silent.

“So… how did you guys get here?” 

“We hired someone who could make portals.”

“But… why here?”

“Because Kayla, someone told us that another earthling would arrive here, and just because most of us gave up, doesn't mean that we weren’t going to help someone who needed it.”

“You came here because you knew that I would come?” I asked, I doubted it, _ I _didn’t even know I was going to be here until I was.

Cada nodded, “we’ve been waiting for you.” she said,“and when you finaly got here, I decided, maybe… maybe it’s time to move on. Maybe we should try again.” 

The others were silent for a long moment, and then they all cheered, Cecily loudest of all.

“We will leave in 2 days.” Cada said once everyone was quiet.

I stared at her waiting for her to say this was a joke or something. But it didn’t happen. Cada looked into a few closets later and found a pink dress she was pretty sure would fit me. I packed that into my stuff, not quite willing to change out of my own clothes quite yet, it felt like I would be rejecting my old life. Cada made us each pack two blankets in our backpacks along with snacks of trail mix without m&ms and dried fruit. Paxton and Cecily couldn’t wear backpacks for obvious reasons so they wore big bulky satchels that wouldn’t get in the way of wings.

We also brought two big tents, one for the girls and one for the boys. No one was going to carry those, I knew because they were too heavy I tried not to ask too many questions about how we were going to transport them, but I still had no idea what we were going to do.

There was also a heavy sack full of the rest of the food we were going to bring. No one wanted to carry that either.

I assumed we would bring some kind of wagon and that would appease my worries. But as we left there was no wagon in sight.

“Soooo… how are we going to carry those?” I finally asked cecily.

Raymont passed by and heard my question.

“Don’t worry about that, that’s my job.” Raymont announced grumpily. “Magic.” he said.

“Um okay?” I said.

“It’s okay he’s just grumpy that he has to do it.” Cecily said, “Raymont is going to turn huge with his magic and carry them for us.”

I looked back at raymont, “you can do that?” I asked.

“Sadly yes, I’m your guys-es own personal laboring giant.” he said.

“That’s awesome, what about everyone else?” I asked them.

Raymont shrugged and left. Once he was gone Cecily answered.

“Well I have super-speed, and these obviously.” she said, and spread her wings. “Paxton has them too, and also super strength… um I think Cada can stop time and control rocks, Ordulf can turn into animals, heal and I think he can control plants a little and… yea.” Cecily shrugged once she was done. 

“Ok… but do I have magic? And if so what can I do?” I asked her. 

“Well you’re a dreamscaper, I can tell from your mark, that means that you probably can do wind things, or music things, or dream things or something, you have to find out what it is yourself.”

“Umm.” I said, not willing to tell her how unhelpful that was. “Thank you?” 

“You’re welcome,” Cecily said, and she walked off to do something else.

I watched her go in slight confusion, I had no idea what Cecily meant by wind things, or anything else, did wind things mean I could make the wind do things? Or did music things mean I could sing really well?

I walked back into the farmhouse and finished packing. Then I wandered around until I came across Cada who ordered me to shove all the forks into a bag, and then the spoons and then she wouldn’t let me go until together we packed all the plates into another bag. Apparently Raymont would carry this as well.

The next day we were preparing to leave and it crossed my mind to wonder how we were going to get off the island, I didn’t think any of us had the ability to make portals. But maybe Cada contacted someone who could?

Finally we left the farmhouse, Raymont turned big, which was fun to watch, plus it turned out to be part of the magic that he could make his clothes bigger too thankfully.

Then we set off. Cada in the lead, the rest of us d'waddling behind. Raymont made one of the backpacks huge, and Cada packed everything into it. So he was wearing that.

Finally it was around 3 hours later, we came to a small town. There we met a boy that Cada called sunchaser. Apparently he was the portal-maker she had sent for. 

“So when do we leave?” Cada asked him once she tracked him down.

Sunchaser - weird name right? - smiled and brought us outside of town. He led us to the river and I saw a girl with long light blonde hair sitting beside the river, she refused to stop fidgeting and sunchaser brought us to her.

“Hey runesight I found them.” he said, the girl looked over at him and glared wholeheartedly.

“Oh big brother I was wondering when you would show up, I’ve been waiting here for **an hour,** do you know how long that is? I’m **bored** , you didn’t tell me it would take this long for you to find them, oh are you guys the earthlings he was talking about, hi! ** I’m still mad at you sunchaser**! But hi other people! I never met someone not from Magicae before, you don’t look different from everyone else. Do you guys eat different things there? What’s it like without magic? How do you get places without magic? What kinds of pet’s do you have?”

“Um.” someone said. But runesight didn’t give anyone else the chance to talk, she either liked hearing herself talk, or she had a habit of saying what she was thinking.

“I like fish, I’ve never had it before this, but it’s cool, kind of like chicken but different, I never thought that I'd like fish, I like fruit too, it’s really sweet. Are you guys sure you’re not from here, you look the same as everyone else, so where are you guys going to go?”

“To the mainland.” Cada said quickly, before runesight could keep talking.

“Oh the mainland? Cool. I was-” Runesight said,

“She’s taking you, she needs practice.” sunchaser said to Cada.

“Wait, that’s why you made me come with you?” runesight asked, she seemed not at all offended that her brother had interrupted her. “So I get to make the portal this time!”

“Yes runesight, you’re making the portal.” sunchaser said.


	4. Eventide Emerson

# 

#  Chapter 4 Eventide Emerson

Eveningrider

I had been in a different world for about a month now. I thought it was going pretty well, just the fact that it wasn’t actually going well at all, and the part that I was lost… oh and that one time that I said something rude to some noble and ended up in prison for a week… 

So maybe it wasn’t going that well, but when you end up on a magical world and your power is reading minds, well and if you’re me, then you tend to be rude to people whenever you can get away with it anyway, but add in that reading minds bit, and… well, let’s just say that I need to get better at ignoring what people are thinking.

Oh, then there’s the part a month ago when I first ended up here. Well, you don’t need to know that, it was horrible, that’s all you’re getting out of me. 

So it’s been a month, and I was hoping to be home by now. No one really bothered to explain to me that it’s a lot harder than it seems. 

I was glaring at the rising sun because in a moment I wouldn’t be able to pretend to be asleep anymore, the innkeeper had let me stay in the attic because there was room there, but she was going to kick me out soon. I knew that much from mind reading. She thought I was a beggar or something because I didn’t have any money. She could have guessed the truth if she stopped being so adamant about not believing in a place with no magic. 

But that worked in my favor because if she told anyone an earthling was sleeping in her attic then everyone who hated me because of my big mouth a month back would know right away it was me. Even if she knew I was a Mindreader they would know it was me.

Mindgazers were rare I was pretty sure.

I continued glaring at the rising sun, and I suddenly had a desire to capture it in a painting. 

_ No no no, not right now! Focus Eve! Get up before she kicks you out!  _ I thought to myself. I could feel the minds of other people in the inn waking from sleep and I knew it was just a matter of time. 

But it was so warm in those blankets, and it was so cold outside! 

_ Get your but out of these blankets Eventide! then put on something presentable!  _ I imagined my mum yelling, it wasn’t hard she had done it plenty of times right before someone important got there, never mind the fact that in reality, it took at least twenty minutes for me to get into those awful gowns, even with help.

The memory of my mum yelling at me to get up finally made me slide out from under the blankets. I thought about taking one for the road but decided against it, I didn’t want even more angry people chasing me, my only hope was to run north and hope they all gave up.

Most of them probably would, most of them probably had already.

I stood up and picked up my meager belongings. Then I tiptoed down the stairs and out into the cool morning air. 

I had no idea where I was going. I just hoped it would be somewhere nice, without too many people. Maybe I could wait there for a while, a month or two, then continue looking for the way home.

It was a good plan, I just hoped that I wouldn’t run into any dragons, evil magical creatures, people… or well, anything? I frowned at the ground as I walked through the not-yet busy streets of the mountain village I didn’t care to know the name of. Where would there be that would be safe from all those things? 

I shook myself and walked faster.

This wasn’t something I had to think about yet, I just had to wander around and eventually find a place. If that didn’t work I could try something else but it was no use worrying about it before I tried. 

So eventually I made it out of the village and a few weeks later, and a lot of getting lost, out of the mountains. It was such a relief to be out of them that I finaly let my mindreading do whatever it wanted, there were no people in these grassy plains, there was no reason to keep it in check, even though I had no idea how. 

Well at least, that’s what I thought, my mind reading immediately showed me otherwise when it found a family living in a small hut about a mile away, I couldn’t hear their thoughts yet, it was too far, but I could tell where they were, then I had to know why they lived so far from other people. So I sighed and turned slightly off course so I could get there.

It might have been better if I had just passed by them, but it was so strange to know that people were there and not go see why.

So a few minutes later I was outside of the hut. I could hear their minds perfectly fine.

Two parents and two children. The Dad was out back, he was barely thinking about anything except what he was doing and the mum was in the kitchen making the boy some lunch.

_ Can’t you go any faster! I want Foooooooood!  _

the Girl was in her room being immensely bored.

_ Why can’t I go help dad in the backyard?  _ She was wondering.  _ I could water the plants or… um, what else could I do? I could uh… I could pick weeds! Do I really want to though? Maybe I should just stay here and be happy I don’t have to weed. But I’m soooo bored! I could help mom make Windreader lunch, but I already ate. I was  _ ** _going _ ** _ to go to town today, but mom decided we didn’t need sugar until tomorrow. Climbing trees doesn’t work when there aren’t any I haven’t climbed already, and I already read everything I needed to. _

Poor little girl, so bored. I thought. It reminds me of myself a little bit, quiet on the outside, but the opposite on the inside. Most people when they thought focused on one thought they didn’t jump around unless they were trying to find something out, but I suppose the girl was trying to find out what to do.

I prepared myself mentally and knocked on the door. 

It swung open a few minutes later a short dark-haired woman holding a plate of apple slices was standing there holding the door open.

“Oh, you poor dear!” she said after she took me in. “What do you need honey? Are you from the village?”

“Well, I was in  _ a _ village,” I said, not sure if we were talking about the same one.

“Do you need anything to eat?”

“Um sure?” I said. 

The woman handed the plate of apple slices to the boy behind her  _ finaly food! _ I got from his mind as he hungrily munched the apple pieces. 

The woman picked up another plate of apples and gave it to me.

“I was going to give it to Aquasong, but she’s sulking in her room.” the woman said, “I can make her something else later.”

“I don’t want to take her food,” I said.

“No, it’s alright.” the woman said. “So, what’s your name?”

“I’m Eventide,” I said.

“I’m Echoflare, this is Windreader, Aquasong is upstairs, and my husband James is out back.”

Windreader was the boy who had only been thinking about food this entire time. He waved when his mom introduced him and went back to his apples.

“James?” I asked. That name was very out of place here, it reeked of Earth.

“Oh yes James is from Earth, but don’t hold that against him, he’s still a fine Blacksmith,” Echoflare said. “Oh, and by the way, Aquasong is a mind reader and if you don’t feel comfortable with that I’ll let you get away with not having to pay us back for those apple slices.”

I looked up at her in surprise, “she is!” I immediately listened harder to Aquasong’s mind and found it was true. “I’m a mind reader too!”

That made me wonder, would I let them know I was from earth? They were so open telling me everything as if we had known each other for years.

It made me suspicious, did they want something from me?

Or maybe they were just nice people.

I shook those thoughts away and went back to my apples I didn’t want to stay too long, I needed to find that safe place to stay while everything cooled down. But first I had to pay for the food.

I helped Echoflare out to repay her for the apples, and before I knew it she was inviting me to stay for dinner, it was getting late, and I didn’t like having to avoid the dangers of Magicae at night. So I decided to stay one night, have dinner help Echoflare out until bedtime, and leave early in the morning before I got wrapped up in Echoflares kindness again.

Dinner was an assortment of fruits and vegetables from the garden and some rabbit meat.

After me, Echoflare and the two kids finished making dinner, a big man came in from the back yard I assumed he was James.

“James before we start dinner I’d like you to meet the helpful girl I told you about,” Echoflare said once we were all settled down for dinner.

“Hello helpful girl, I’m James Willson,” he said politely, but from his eyes and mind I could tell he’d rather just say a gruff hello, but Echoflare was watching so he was being polite.

“Uh hi, I’m Eventide Emerson,” I said, “but Eve works fine.”

“Oh my.” James said once he heard me speak, “Echoflare, you didn’t tell me she was from Earth.”

Echoflare looked surprised, “she is?”

“That accent and that name,” he said excitedly, “definitely from Earth.”

I smiled to myself, this was a lot less awkward than I thought it would be.

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Echoflare asked me.

I shrugged, “I couldn’t think of a good time to say it.”

The summer melted into fall and I never left the cottage, well I did leave it but I didn’t leave and never come back like had been my original plan, apparently knowing that someone else had been ripped from his home as forcefully as I had a few months prior, was good for me.

It only took us a few weeks near the beginning to really figure out there was something wrong, whenever we talked about earth it seemed like we were from entirely different worlds, then it only took us a few days to figure the rest out.

It started when I mentioned something about current events in America, he was American so he should have understood but he didn’t. Then he asked if I was trying to give him a history lesson.

Soon after that, we set off trying to find out what was happening.

It didn’t take long a few days later, as I mentioned before, we understood, I asked him what year it was last time he was on earth. He responded. He was from 1987. Almost exactly a hundred years in the future, because I was from 1892. He may have been here almost as long as I have been alive, but my time was  _ a lot _ farther back than his.


	5. depends on your point of view

#  Chapter 5 depends on your point of view

Peacekeeper

I was outside flying and it was beautiful. There were more stars in the night sky than I had ever seen at home. Had it really almost been a year? A year since everything started, a year since I had last seen the stars of home. I glided over to the roof of our hut and landed just as I heard the front door open. I froze in confusion. Who would be out this late? Carefully I peeked over the edge of the roof and saw the new girl, Kayla. I relaxed if she saw me she wouldn’t know I wasn’t supposed to be out here this late. 

Cada had worried about people going out at night ever since one of us had wandered away in the night never to be seen again. I thought his name might have been Tim or something, I hadn’t known him that well.

I watched curiously as Kayla stared up at the night sky, was she looking for familiar constellations? Did she expect to find one? Or did she know nothing about astronomy and was just enjoying the view? 

Kayla sighed and walked back into the hut after a long moment. 

After I couldn’t see her anymore I took off again, continuing my flight under the stars. I wondered if Kayla had trouble sleeping when the moon was out like me or if she had just wanted to be sure this was another world. At least that meant she was starting to understand the magnitude of what had happened when she arrived here.

An hour or so later I was starting to get tired. I went back inside and slipped into my room without incident. I dreamed that night, the nightmares that had plagued so many of us after the loss of so many more than we have now. My nightmares consisted of dragons and ogres taking my friends away into the darkness, of heinous carnivorous plants finding us in the jungle. Everything that had happened to us before we came to this protected place haunted me as I was sure it did everyone else that had been there. Cada especially, who had only wanted to protect everyone.

But I could also see… through the nightmare the way home that so many of us had never found. The way that still eluded this failed attempt and I knew that even though there was no way, I would still never give up on getting home. I just hoped that no one else would have to die before that happened.

The next day I awoke to the bussy clitter clatter of everyone getting ready for the day. It was probably almost noon. I regularly woke up late because of my habit of flying beneath the stars. It would be better if someone would go with me but the only other person who could go with me was not immune to the cold, in fact, it sometimes seemed like she was extra sensitive to it, and she especially loved waking up before everyone else. 

I could never understand Cecily, sure she was one of the only other people who wanted to keep going, but who likes waking up before sunrise? Not me, in fact, if I could get away with it I would love to wake up after sunset. Sadly Cada wouldn’t stand for it, especially at first when we had to get up early and move the camp every day, in the hopes that we could find a way home.

Finaly I got up and went upstairs for lunch or breakfast or whatever. Kayla was strangely silent at the breakfast table, still the same as yesterday but her silence had a certain air to it that seemed like she was halting her questions for now. I wondered if it was because of last time. 

Despite that, I still tried just as hard to get both her and Cecily to take part in the conversation. It didn’t work as well as it had yesterday, but I still tried.

At the end of the meal, Kayla left early and went off on her own back to her room. No one Questioned her desire to be alone, it was tough to be pulled so suddenly into a situation like the one we were in, and all of us understood how she felt. After everyone left from breakfast I looked for Cecily and Raymont. 

I found them in the game Room again and Raymont was winning yet another foosball game. Cecily ended up loosing and then we started the meeting. 

Raymont wasn’t totally into the idea of trying again, but he would try if we could convince Cada and Ordulf to do it.

“Are we going to tell Kayla what we’re planning?” Cecily asked.

“I would like to, but we should probably make sure she’d be up for it first, this kind of thing is not for the faint of heart,” I explained.

“Dude, the girl survived mostly on her own for around two days out there, by choice just to prove us wrong. It may not have worked, but if that doesn’t qualify her for having the ability, then I don’t know what does.” Raymont said.

I paused and frowned, he was right, the girl was very stubborn, which meant that she probably wasn’t going to ever give up. 

“Mmmmm… I suppose you’re right. I still think we need to wait a little longer, wait for her to get used to the idea of this place and stuff.”

“Alright, but Paxton, the second that happens, you are going to tell her that some of us are planning on trying again,” Cecily said with determination.

I shrugged and the meeting ended.

Dreamcaster

It was only my second day with the other people from Earth, and I had already destroyed my room. The nightstand beside my bed had fallen over and everything on or inside it was on the ground, the bed was unmade and half of the bedding was on the floor, all the clothes that had been in the closet were strewn around the room and randomly placed in corners.

It wasn’t that I wasn’t tidy. It was that now that I was away from my parents, I could finally get away with being untidy, combine that with what I was currently doing, and that turns into a very messy room.

I was sitting in the middle of the room being frustrated. I wanted to do magic and I had no idea how.

I didn’t know if healing, turning into birds, or having wings were the only types of magic, and I didn’t even know if everyone could do magic. But I was pretty sure the only way to find out was to try, I had tried lots of things, saying obscure magic words like abracadabra, or open sesame. Nothing did anything. 

After my failed attempts, I lay down in the middle of the room wondering if I should ask for help. Finaly I concluded that it would be too embarrassing. While I was laying there my tiredness from staying up most of the previous night caught up with me and I fell asleep. 

The wind moved around me I was on a tall hill and my new dress was billowing in the wind. I was holding something. Inside my palm, I found a small smooth black rock. It was very light and beautiful. In the distance, I could see a great tree.

The weird part was that I could tell I was dreaming. That never happened to me.

As I was watching the great tree, out of the clouds came a dragon, white, sparkling, and beautiful. As I watched it calmly, the dragon noticed me. I knew this was a dream so I thought nothing of it.

The sparkling dragon landed a few yards away from me. It glared down at me.

_ “What do you want? here to taunt me? Here to rub in everything that every other dragon has already said?”  _ it asked.

I frowned, this was an odd dream.

“Who are you?” I asked.

_ “So you don’t know. You don’t know! I hate humans! Can’t the other dragons see that? I hate them as much as everyone else! It’s not my fault!” _

“Umm…” I said. this dragon was saying things as if trying to convince herself! At least, I was pretty sure it was a female, the voice sounded closer to female than male to me at least.

_ “I hate humans, I hate my father, I hate everything he did! Why can’t they see that?” _

“What did he do?” I asked, still very confused.

The dragon froze and stared at me like I was crazy.  _ “You don’t know? I thought that all you blasted humans knew about him.” _

“Did you ever ask us if we knew?” I asked

_ “Well no. because I don’t make it a habit to talk to lower creatures,”  _ she explained 

“What did he do?” I asked again.

_ “Wow, I’ve heard about it every day of my life, but you claim that you have  _ ** _never_ ** _ heard about it. I need to think about this.” _ with that, she flew away with what I thought must be a thoughtful expression on her face.

Then I woke up.


	6. when portals go horribly wrong

# 

#  Chapter 6 when portals go horribly wrong

Dreamcaster

I sat underneath a tree outside. Cada had made me go outside and get some fresh air because I was being very grumpy. The tree wasn’t very big, and in the autumn wind, it’s leaves were turning orange and yellow. The fact that it was autumn here confused me because it was spring last time I remember at home. But it made sense now why there was so little warmth at night.

It had been a week since the weird dream, and I still had no idea why I dreamed it. I was also no closer to doing magic. It was frustrating not having answers. I wanted to get home but I was also starting to get to know everyone here, and I was starting to open up to them more, I was missing playing the violin though.

I lay down under the tree and stared up at the sky. My view was obscured by the tree, but I had nothing better to do.

“Nice view?” someone asked. I jumped and saw Paxton standing a little bit away.

“I guess I just have nothing better to do,” I said, restating my thoughts from earlier.

“How have you adjusted so far?” Paxton asked.

I looked at him suspiciously, “fine,” I said. 

“Well, Cecily wanted me to tell you, so here goes.” Paxton took a deep breath. “Some of us are planning on leaving and trying again…” 

I stared back up at the tree wondering if he was messing with me. “You’re joking,” I said.

“No, no I’m not.” Paxton said, “me, Cecily, and Raymont, well not fully Raymont, but he’ll come with us if we can convince Cada and Ordulf to come too, we want to leave this island and go back to the mainland. Then we want to find the way home.”

“I’ll come,” I said after a moment of shocked silence. “But first you have to tell me. Do I have magic?” I asked.

“Wait… so no one told you?” Paxton hit his forehead with his palm. “I guess we all thought someone else had already told you about the magic here….”

“So?” I said. “Do I?” 

“What symbol is on the back of your dominant hand?” Paxton asked.

I looked back at it. I didn’t know how to explain it so I just showed it to him.

“You’re a Dreamscaper. People who have that mark can look into others’ dreams, or control the wind. I think there’s something to do with music or sound that you might be able to do, but I don’t remember… um. I think that’s it.”

“So you could tell all that just by looking at this weird mark?”

“Yeah, it appears on people when they come here, the native people get them at a certain age it’s different depending on what magic you can do. Mine and Cecilys are the same,” he said, he showed me his, it was a simple star shape.

“So when are we planning on leaving?”I asked.

“Sometime next week if we can’t convince Cada, but if it seems like she’s warming up to the idea we’ll have to wait longer.

I nodded, that would work.

A few days later Cada dragged me to town so she could pick up some more cheese, she also dragged Ordulf and Paxton along, we arrived there around midday the sun was high in the sky but a thin layer of clouds obscured our view of it. The chill of the autumn breeze was enough that most of the bugs were gone into hiding. 

The town turned out to be that large cluster of houses that Cada had found me near. It was nowhere near as big as Cheyenne, at most it had maybe a little more than a hundred houses and buildings. Above the entrance gate, (which it apparently had) the words  _ skybloom _ were scrawled in fancy script on the large, sturdy wooden board that formed the top of the gateway.

“You three can explore while I go shopping,” Cada said, “meet back here in an hour.”

We all nodded, anxious to do what  _ we _ wanted. It didn’t quite turn out that way though. Paxton dragged us along to a secret place that he swore was awesome and that he had gone there plenty of times, it took half of our time looking for it. Then as Paxton said we were almost there I caught view of what he must be talking about, and undoubtedly Ordulf did too. 

A snack shop.

I and Ordulf gladly followed the rest of the way but then I scowled once we were at the door because something had occurred to me. 

“Wait a second genius,” I said to Paxton, he stopped impatiently, “how do you expect us to  _ buy _ anything? Remember how Cada didn’t give us any money?”

Paxton smiled and pulled something out of his pocket. He patted the small pouch and I heard the jingling of coins.

“You think she’s the only one with money?” Paxton explained. Ordulfs eyes nearly popped out of their sockets, they were so wide.

“How did you get so much?” Ordulf asked, there was a hint of suspicion in his voice.

“Calm down bird boy, I didn’t steal it.”

Ordulf muttered something that sounded a lot like “you’re a bigger bird.”

I stifled a laugh as Paxton led us into the candy store, and ten or so minutes later we emerged with our pockets full of goodies, chocolate (I was very relieved that that was a thing here), hard candy, and mints causing our pockets to bulge.

Paxton’s money was nearly gone, and that was when we all realized that we didn’t have that much time to meet Cada. we tore through the streets in an effort to make it in time. We were around halfway back when it happened. I saw the glimmer of blue-silver that I could have sworn I had seen before, Ordulf and Paxton hadn’t seen the portal until they bumped straight into the person walking out and tripped right into its silvery-blue substance. I was slightly behind them and was able to stop myself before I fell in after them. I stared at the fading portal waiting for them to come back, they didn’t. The girl who had come out of the portal stared too.

Finaly after a long moment that could have been ten seconds or ten minutes, I asked the girl who had come out of the portal, “where did they go?” the girl shrugged, lost for words, I had no idea that for her that was very out of character.

“I came from the mainland, they could have ended up there, or they could have gotten lost in the portal network and gone pretty much anywhere.”

“So they’re  _ probably _ at the mainland?”

The girl nodded, “this is the first time something like this has happened to me, I’ve heard about it happening before, but…” the girl shrugged again.

“Why were you going through that portal anyway?” I asked.

“I’m a worldpasser for hire, someone wanted to move to the mainland, and I took the job. We go lots of places, this is an island right,” she frowned after noticing a certain building, “wait. Is this skybloom?” she asked

“Yes. why?” I answered.

The girl groaned, “this isn’t even the right island! I wanted to go to illid island, not pamorphalo!”

We talked for a while longer and I learned her name was Runesight, after hearing my name, she figured out that I was from Earth. Then I remembered the reason why we had been running.

“Oh no. I forgot about Cada! She must be worried sick!” I exclaimed, “I gotta go tell Cada about our unfortunate problem.” The girl looked like she was going to say something but I  _ really _ had to go, we had two missing and I was eager to pass the responsibility of finding them to someone else. So I rushed on and made it back at our meeting place ten minutes late. 

Cada was waiting for us. How was I going to explain to her that there was no  _ us _ ? That the others were gone? I swallowed my fear and went up to her.

That’s when I noticed that runesight had followed me.

“There you are,” Cada said, I was trying to find a way to tell her what had happened when she asked it for me, “where’s Ordulf and Paxton?” 

“Um, ya see…”

“Runesight?” Cada exclaimed.

The girl who had followed me waved, “Hi Cada! It was totally an accident coming here, and it was also a total accident that I may or may not have opened my portal in the middle of the road and two of your earth buddies may or may not have run straight into it.” Runesight said cheerfully, “but thankfully we’re pretty sure that they ended up on the mainland, probably near my village, and when I heard you knew them I decided to pop over and say hi!”

Cada stared uncomprehendingly at Runesight, then she looked at me and noticed my serious face.

“So… Paxton and Ordulf are…”

“Missing, yes,” I said.

“I was going to say doomed but that works too.”

The second we got back to the farm, Cada was already rallying everyone up to go to the mainland, Paxton’s plan had worked in a way I doubted he ever thought it would.


	7. portals, lies and other fun stuff

# 

#  Chapter 7 portals, lies, and other fun stuff

Eveningrider

In the present, it was around fall time, the time when the mountains at home were the most beautiful from the trees’ diverse colors. The fall here though was significantly reduced, the only signs of it was a slightly cooler breeze, and it told me that we must be very close to the equator, I doubted the winter would be much colder and I  _ really _ doubted it would even freeze once.

Today was the 6-month anniversary of my arrival on Magicae, I didn’t mention it, but I was sort of convinced that now, I would never go home, to people who didn’t know I was from Earth, I started going by Eveningrider.

I was out on a walk, enjoying the view of the impossibly tall mountains in the distance, and wondering if I should start trying to find art supplies when I saw a shimmer not far away. A shimmer of blue and silver. The horrible familiarity of that sight filled me with dread. It was a portal.

My stomach tightened, wondering if some poor earthling was being ripped from their home at this very second. I had no idea that I was sort of right, but in a way that I had never considered.

Two figures tumbled out of the portal as if they had tripped on the way out.

I tried to get answers from their minds but they were filled with confusion. And neither of them was thinking straight.

I rushed over to them, wondering if I should help. Maybe they just sucked at traveling through portals.

By the time I got there, they had finished getting up, rubbing their sores, and gawking at their surroundings. Then they noticed me.

“Where are we?” the younger boy asked.

“A few miles off from Fallstar.” I answered, “are you okay it looks like you tumbled through a hurricane.”

“You’re accent…” the older boy started

“Yes?” I asked, daring him to guess.

“It’s not common here.”

“Maybe not where you’re from, you’re landing tells me you’ve never taken a portal before, so you can’t be from here.” I hoped they wouldn’t wonder why no one had the accent if they ran into anyone else.

“Soooo… how do we get back?” the younger boy asked, staring in dismay at the now empty space where the portal had been.

“I suppose it’s too much to hope that you’re a Timestrider that can Worldpass?” the older boy asked me.

I shook my head, if I  _ had _ been one of those I would be home by now, maybe not at the right time from what I had figured out so far, but I would be back on Earth. “No,” I said out loud, “I’m a Mindgazer.”

“The mindreading kind? Or…” asked the younger boy. But in their minds, they were both thinking the same thing,  _ what do we do if she says yes? _ I hesitated a moment. Then decided to lie.

“No,” I said in a reassuring voice, “I can just turn invisible,” which I  _ could, _ apparently. I found out recently I gave them a demonstration to show them I was serious and they both stared at the empty space that I had just been in a moment before, I only kept it up for a few seconds because I couldn’t read minds and be invisible at the same time. Once I was visible again I could feel their relief at my lie.

Then after a bit of me being battered by their thoughts and worries I snapped.

“I suppose if you have nowhere to go for now Echoflare and flamesprout may have room,” I said,  _ even if that  _ ** _room_ ** _ means them sleeping on the sofas, or windreader and Aquasong sleeping on the sofas while they take their beds.  _ There was no way Echoflare would turn away some lost strangers. Just look at me, sadly I took the only guest room, I just hoped they didn’t stay as long as me.

“Oh really? Thank you!” the younger boy exclaimed. 

“Thanks!” said the older boy.

I nodded, “follow me.” and I led them back to the hut

As we walked the older boy, I could tell from the wings that he was definitely a weatherwatcher, tried to spark conversation but I wasn’t good with that kind of thing so I answered him with short replies.

Finally, I asked a question, “what are your names?”

“Paxton,” the older boy responded immediately,

The other boy slapped his forehead, “you’re not supposed to - the whole point of having - uhh… I’m Ordulf.” 

I stopped, how had I not seen it before? I was actively listening to their minds, how had I not figured it out, “Those sound an awful lot like Earth names, I’ve never heard Ordulf before though where does that come from?”

“Um… Germany.” the younger boy, Ordulf said.

“So you’re  _ both _ from earth?” I asked, making sure.

“Yea,” Paxton said ruefully, “we can still probably stay at this place right?”

I snorted, “Oh definitely, in my opinion, two earthlings crowding up the place is enough, two more and Echoflare’s gonna have her hands very full. But she’s so nice I don’t know if it even bugs her.”

“There are two people from earth already there? How big is this place?” Paxton asked.

“Oh not that big, Echoflare’s just too nice plus one  _ is  _ her husband, too bad for you I don’t know where else to send you.” I frowned,  _ I’m probably gonna have to replant years’ worth of Sivili plants for this. _

“What’s  _ your _ name?” asked Ordulf,

“I’m…” I faltered and pretended I had something in my throat and coughed, I cleared my throat. I was already lying about so much, why not this, “I’m Eveningrider, but you can call me Eve.” they would probably find out once we got to the hut, I was being dumb and I knew it, But I didn’t want these strangers from mostly the same place I was to know much about  _ me _ . 

Then I realized something, once we were within range, I could tell Aquasong to ask Echoflare to make up a story that the second earthling left, and then I would never have to explain anything to Ordulf and Paxton, they would leave, and then everything would get back to normal.

Peacekeeper

I couldn’t believe our luck, landing right next to a person who knew a place with  _ two _ more Earthlings,  _ and _ we were getting a place to stay.

It was too easy, I had learned that much in my year here people didn’t tend to trust Earthlings unless they were one themself, a close relative was one, or, they had known one for a while. Eveningrider or Eve probably knew these two earthlings pretty well, so that explained it, but I was still uneasy at the lack of judgment from her. 

We arrived within sight of the house a few minutes later, it was more like the broken-down farmhouse that everyone else lived in than I would like to admit. 

By now I had stopped trying to get Eve to reveal things about herself. When she had been talking openly before, I had noticed she talked a lot more about other people than herself; her walls were too thick to penetrate in the less than 30 minutes that we had been talking.

Once we knocked on the door a tall blonde woman answered it, and after seeing us she ushered us inside saying “how dirty you ‘poor dears’ are.” Eve slipped inside and stood in a corner as if waiting for who I assumed must be Echoflare to leave so she could go without distracting her. She looked around in a way that was a little suspicious and then a little girl came in and she looked around 9 or 10 years old.

“Mom!” she said to Echoflare, who frowned a little bit

“I’m a little busy honey, can you tell me quickly?”

The girl nodded, “Tim still hasn’t come back.”

“Oh no, I hope nothing happened to him,” Echoflare said,

“Well, he has complained multiple times about wanting to go to a big city, where he might get money,” Eve said unexpectedly. “Plus he can look after himself.”

“Oh but Tim, he’s hardly older than you Eve!” 

Eve looked annoyed for a moment.

“Well, I guess he’s gone,” Eve said

“Did you say, Tim?” I asked. Could it possibly be  _ the _ Tim? The one that went missing in the night. “Was he the other earthling here?” I asked

“Oh yes Tim was here and he was an earthling,” Echoflare said,

Ordulf gasped, “I knew Tim, is he still alive?”

“Maybe, he left a while ago,” Echoflare said,

Both I and Ordulf looked confused.

“But, uh, you said he left today?”

“Yes, that was a while ago,” Eve said

“No, it-” I started to say

“It’s long enough to get eaten by a dragon,” Eve explained

I was so confused I just didn’t ask anything else.

Tim, the other earthling was gone, and now, I wanted to find him. Going to the big city to get money did sound an awful lot like the Tim I knew.


	8. don’t lie, it’s bad for your health

#  Chapter 8 don’t <strike>die</strike>, _lie_, it’s bad for your health

Dreamcaster

We left for the mainland the day after Ordulf and Paxton went missing. Runesight took us to the place where she had been when she went through the portal, her hometown. We all brought packs full of sleeping bags, extra clothes, snacks, and hiking equipment.

We came through the portal when the sun was high, and surprisingly (well not really but still) Everyone came. Raymont, Cada, myself, Cecily, and Runesight. I had no idea why Runesight came but that’s what happened.

The portal network was blue and silver, a calm aura of tunnels that looked like they were made of crystal. In fact, some people called them that, the crystal tunnels. We fell through them, every time we turned I feared we would hit a wall but we glided easily where we were meant to go, Time had no meaning in the realm of the Worldpassing Timestriders. 

Travel was swift through the portal network, or it could have been the opposite, every second seemed to take an hour, and every hour a second. Until I had no idea how long we had been traveling. Eventually, the calm aura of the Crystal tunnels overtook me and I gave in. it was so calming here like a warm blanket was wrapped around my mind. All my worries were gone. 

When we arrived at our destination, it was shocking seeing colors other than silver and blue. The green of the grass, the brown of the dirt, the grey of the stones, and the deeper more eye-catching blue of the sky.

We were somewhere completely different. It was very hot, and we were in the middle of a small village.

Those were the first things I was able to figure out.

Runesight herded us all along to the nearest inn where Cada paid for us to stay a week her logic was, we would stay there a week and hope we had found Paxton and Ordulf before we ran out of supplies. 

It took us forever to find out anything. First of all apparently, after asking around we found out that no one had seen two boys come out of a portal in the past day and a half, so now we had to look at the surrounding area. We split up searching the mountains around Fallstar and by nightfall, we still hadn’t found anything. 

I was with Cecily searching to the east. After night fell we hurried back to Fallstar. That night I slept in the inn with everyone else, I wanted to be able to find Paxton and Ordulf that night, but it wouldn’t happen it was too dark. That night as I was slipping into sleep something Paxton had said to me a few days ago popped back into my head, ‘ _ People who have that mark can look into others’ dreams _ .’ Could I?

Eveningrider

The two new earthlings left the next day after they arrived going to Cerulea, the nearest big city, in search of the imaginary earthling Tim, Echoflare loaded them up with supplies, in my opinion, they didn’t deserve them but that’s what she did.

After they left Echoflare pulled me aside.

“I don’t understand why you insist on hiding from your own kind, they were nice boys really, I went along with it to spare you the embarrassment, but I won’t do it a second time.”

I nodded. “How did Aquasong come up with the name Tim?”

“Oh he was real, he stayed with us for about a week left right before you arrived actually. Timmothy Arene, Timmothy was actually his middle name, but he thought his first name was too strange.”

I knew how he felt, I mean Eventide really? Eve worked perfectly fine. “What was his first name?”

Echoflare shrugged, “he never told me.”

“So did he actually go to Cerulea?” I asked her.

“Of course, he was a genius with Technology and wanted to sell his work.”

I caught myself before I asked any more questions, why did I care so much about Tim? Maybe I was fooling myself, maybe I  _ did _ care about the other earthlings in the world more than I wanted to believe.

Dreamcaster

I was in a beautiful place beside a lake. The tall hills in the distance could have been mountains or the hills mentioned earlier.

The strange calmness that had been with me while we were in the Crystal tunnels was with me again. Deep calming happiness.

The sky was a deep blue with only a few clouds in sight, and not far in front of me was a girl she had a painting in front of her, and her dark brown hair was pulled into a ponytail, she wore an elaborate dress that seemed to have been modified for travel,

I walked up to her to compliment her painting skills, they were far greater than I could ever do. Of course, if there was one thing I had learned from music it’s that no one is just good at it they need to practice.

“I like your painting,” I told her.

The girl just nodded and continued.

“Where are we?” I asked her.

“My grandparents’ house in the country,” she said succinctly. I noticed that she had a distinctly British accent.

“Are we still on magicae?” I asked

“No. Magicae is for the future. the realm of dreams, however, is not part of that. As I understand it is an in-between it can be accessed from Magicae or earth,”

“Dreams? We’re asleep?”

“How can a dreamscaper like yourself not know when you are asleep?”

“Who are you?” I asked her. She seemed to hesitate a second too long.

“Eveningrider.” she said, “I’m a mindgazer.”

“Oh, I’ve never heard that one before, what do they do?”

“We uh,... well that’s not the point,  _ you _ are visiting  _ my _ dream. So now I need to ask you, what do you want?”

“Well, I’m looking for my friends I was trying to find them or someone who knew where they went.” I explained, “so maybe that’s why I visited your dream, do you know them?”

“Who are your friends?” she asked with a sour expression.

“Ordulf spitzer, and Paxton Garvey,” I answered quickly. Her expression stayed sour. After a tense 12 seconds, she sighed.

“They went off to Cerulea to find someone.” she finaly said.

“Thank you,” I told her, “I need them if I ever want to go home.” Eveningrider frowned.

“Where is your home, maybe I can help.” I looked at her and wondered if she actually could help. I knew very little about any of the ways home, maybe she knew something.

“I’m from Earth, Paxton and Ordulf are too, so are my other friends Cada, Raymont, and Cecily.” I explained, “I got to this crazy place a few weeks ago, but almost no one wants to get home anymore.”

“Well getting back to earth wouldn’t be your only problem,” Eveningrider said. She didn’t continue.

“What else would be a problem?”

“You would never know if a portal would take you to the right time,” she said. “It would probably take you to any time, 1892, 1985, maybe even 2020.”

“Why wouldn’t it take me to the current date?” I asked, not quite believing her.

“What year is the current one?”

“2005 of course,” I answered, her face fell as if she was hoping it was something different.

“Well just ask all your Earth buddies what year it was when they arrived. I’m sure the results will surprise you.”

That morning I woke up very unsettled.

Eveningrider

I woke up with a strange feeling. There were even more earthlings out there, looking for their home but most of them had given up. It made me feel guilty for having been one of the ones that had given up. Plus I had lied to them, told them I wasn’t even one of them, maybe I was trying to hide from them. Maybe I was just getting so used to lies that I couldn’t live with the truth. 

I wanted to go home.

I left for Cerulea that day.

Dreamcaster

“Cada! Cada! Cada!” I yelled as I banged on her door, it was barely sunrise but I needed to talk to her about so much. “Cada! Cad-”

“What do you want!” Cada yelled as she opened the door,

“I had a Dream.”

“Well, I don’t see why that matters at this hour. We still need to find Ordulf and Paxton I told everyone that was our first priority. I don’t see why your dream matter unless your magic is-” Cada frowned for a moment, “Oh, Dreams… I see.” Cada motioned me inside. “Tell me about it.”

I followed her into her room and sat down in the offered chair, after a minute of working up the courage I told her about the dream.

“Cerulea, I see… I wonder who they’re looking for.” Cada said once I told her what Eveningrider had said.

“There’s one more thing Cada. she said something about… well, what year was it when you were last on Earth?” I asked her.

“You mean how long I’ve been here?”

“No what year is it?”

“Are you sure you want to know?”

“Yes. what are you hiding from us?” I asked suddenly sure she knew what I was talking about.

“ _ Thousands of times collide past present and future, _ ” Cada muttered.

“What?” I asked

“It’s what I’ve been trying to hide from everyone from too close to figure it out,” Cada said. “Unless someone just straight up asks the question it doesn’t pop up in a natural conversation. People don’t often ask what year it is. That’s why it’s so easy to hide.”

“So we  _ are _ from different times?”

“Yes.” Cada said, “I’m from 2018, Paxton is from 1989, Cecily is from 1996, I’d assume your from somewhere in the 2000s, right?” I nodded. “Raymont is from 1974. All not too far away from each other but then there’s Ordulf… he’s the only one that knows. Raymont suspects it but ordulf is the one who figured it out.”

“When is Ordulf from?”

“Somewhere during the holy roman empire. I had to teach him English and modern slang so no one else would figure it out.” Cada said.

“Okay I understand that, but why?”

“Because I wanted their hope to stay alive. You’ve seen me and Ordulf neither of us has as much hope as everyone else. You all run on hope, but us…” she shrugged pitifully, “now all I want is to protect everyone from this world and everything about it.”

“But if you’re both so tight-lipped about this… how did someone who has no relation at all to earth, well I’m pretty sure she doesn’t, how did she know about this?”


	9. Chapter 9

# 

#  Chapter 9 travel, travel, and death traps

Peacekeeper

We traveled to Cerulea, it was the closest city, and Tim was probably there the problem was it was  _ miles _ away and the wilderness of magicae was a very dangerous place at any time of day slightly less deadly in the daytime though. There were magically poisonous deathtrap plants, dragons that occasionally flew overhead, the odd ogre camp, and even a few dinosaurs that must have ended up here the same way we had, but thousands of years before, and even more deadly magical and nonmagical things that I can’t think of off the top of my head.

The worst part was my problems with being a part-time nocturnal person. Plus I hated to admit it but Pamorphalo was a thousand times safer than the mainland. We had been traveling for a day and a half and had just recovered from a dinosaur stampede.

Ordulf was nursing a broken arm and I was pretty much dying from exhaustion from having to fly us out of there. My wings are not meant to carry two people. I would have left him, but he had the map.

I was starting to recover from everything. When I heard the rustling of leaves. They stopped not far away, and I started hearing footsteps.

“Who’s there?” I asked looking around wildly. Ordulf had heard it too and was staring intently at a blank space.

“Come out,” Ordulf said.

Out of the nothingness, a figure emerged. It was a girl with a ponytail and a blue dress, it was Eveningrider.

“Hi,” she said.

“Why did you follow us? If you wanted to come, you could have said so when we left.” Ordulf told her.

“Yes, I know. But I didn’t know I needed to come until after you left.”

“Why did you need to come?” I asked

The girl sighed. “It’s complicated, but first I need to tell you… I’m sorry, for everything.”

“What do you have to be sorry for?” I asked, “you’ve been nothing but a good person since we met.”

She snorted. “There are so many things… but the most thing is, I really want to go home. I didn’t realize that until recently. Home is important, and no matter how impossible it seems. There must be a way.”

I stared at her with confusion. Ordulf stiffened and narrowed his eyes.

“You are from Earth! Arent you!”

Eveningrider shrank back and nodded, “like I said, sorry.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?” I asked 

“I don’t know! Okay! The lies were popping out so fast at first!”

“Lie _ s _ plural? What else was there?” Ordulf didn’t stop glaring

“Well, I am a mindgazer, that’s true, my name’s Eventide Emerson, but Eve is better, I’ve been here for six-ish months, I’m from England,” she said as fast as she could.” I… uh sorry… I read minds and-”

“What?” I exclaimed, “you said you don’t!” she finaly snapped.

“Sorry but that’s just not something you ask if you want the truth!” she yelled, “if you wanted the truth you should have thought about how I could tell how you would react to it! Mindreaders aren’t popular at all. No one likes their private thoughts invaded, but most of the time I can’t help it.” she fell silent and looked at the ground. I suddenly felt guilty, she was trying to fix her lies and we were making it harder for her. It was her fault, yes, but if she was good enough to want to fix them than shouldn’t I let her?

“Ok, I forgive you,” I told her. 

She looked relieved. “Oh thank you.”

Ordulf snorted and turned away. “If we’re going to get to Cerulea any time soon then we should keep go-” Ordulf froze where he was and stared with panic in his eyes into the forest.

“What is it?” I asked him.

“Run,” Ordulf said, and he bolted past us, I had just enough time to see something growling with teeth before I followed his lead. I didn’t even have time to make sure Eve was still with us, we bolted through the forest suddenly no longer tired from the earlier dinosaur chase.

two dinosaur attacks in one day were enough for all three of us we climbed a tree and stayed there for the rest of the day hoping that nothing else would try to eat us that day.

The next day wasn’t as eventful with just a few annoying carnivorous death plants going after Eventide. Eventually, the days blurred together weeks and weeks and before I knew it, we were only a few days off from Cerulea.

Dreamcaster

We left for Cerulea soon after the dream fiasco, and I quickly learned why Cada had said Ordulf and Paxton were doomed. The wilderness of the mainland was a million times worse than when I ran off on pamorphalo. Not only were there goblins (and there were a lot of those) but there were ogres, trolls, fairies, witches, and even more magical creatures that I’d heard about or even some that I hadn’t. Like floxs, spark-lings, quichs, and onyxs. 

We traveled for about a month and a half, to the south-east and through the jungle (curse you Equator! You’re too humid!) we would have taken a road but Cecily explained to me that every time people get a good path running, the wilderness destroys it the second there’s no one there to keep it there.

So people here didn’t travel as much as they could’ve.

And I could see why it wasn’t so popular. I mean, how can one jungle have so many carnivorous plants? I’d run into at least six of them on just my first day of traveling in the jungle.

After the month and a half of travel, we were finaly outside of Cerulea and hopefully, we would be able to find the lost boys.

Eveningrider

We arrived at Cerulea a few weeks later. None of us remembered how long it had been because by the time we realized it might matter we had lost track of the days. 

After traveling for who knew how long we were finaly at civilization again and it was shocking. There was a great big wall surrounding the city probably to keep unwanted magical death creatures out. Most big cities I had come across had a wall, there were even a few smaller ones that had makeshift wooden walls. 

After being out in that wilderness that the cities were protected from for a while, it made me appreciate the fact that they were protected. 

Early in our journey I had interrogated the boys about the Time problem and found that Ordulf already knew, Paxton, however, was very surprised about it but after a few days, he had realized how much sense that made.

Now we were facing the walls of Cerulea in the midmorning heat wondering how we should do this

“So where do you think Tim would be?” I asked the boys.

Ordulf shrugged “wherever the most action would be. Well, technology-wise or anything really.”

I tapped my chin. “So wherever the inventors are?”

Ordulf nodded “probably.”

“I think the inventors would be near the center where the richest people are so they can sell their stuff for a lot.”

I shook my head. “Often the best inventor is rased by common blood. They would not be able to get to the inner city until they made a big enough name for themselves. There would be plenty of inventors in a common market.” I explained, “but Tim has had a while to make a name for himself. So if he is a good inventor he would be in the inner city. But if he is a common inventor than the market stalls.”

“He was from somewhere in the 2000s,” Ordulf said, “that era is full of people with brilliant ideas. It all depends on whether his ideas were too far forward for the people here or if they embraced them head-on.”

“So the short answer is that we have no idea?” Paxton asked.

“Yes, we have no idea.” I said, “we’ll have to check everywhere.”

We entered the city through the gates we had to knock for a solid minute before anyone opened it, and even then someone had to peek over the wall to make sure we were human. 

“This place doesn’t get many visitors.” I heard Ordulf mutter as we walked through the gateway. 

A guard stopped us right before we got inside.

“What are your names and business here?” he asked.

“I’m Eveningrider, this is Peacekeeper, and Void, we traveled all the way from Fallstar to see your beautiful city,” I said.

“Are you planning on leaving?” he asked,

“We will decide that when the time comes,” I said ominously.

“Okay I guess you can come in then,” he said.

“Thank you.” the guard stepped aside and we walked into Cerulea.

“I didn’t know you could be so commanding,” Paxton commented once the guard was out of earshot.

I frowned because I hadn’t realized I had used my  _ ‘i’m better than you, now grovel before me you worm _ ’ voice.


	10. Cerulea

# 

#  Chapter 10 Cerulea

Dreamcaster

The city of Cerulea was huge compared to Skybloom. There were  _ a lot _ of market stalls, houses, buildings, and parks. People were walking around the market buying things, browsing, or bartering.

It was kind of overwhelming after being in the wilderness with the same four people for a month and a half.

We walked through the market staying together and trying to find Ordulf and Paxton. After a few hours with no luck, we decided to try other places. We split up. Cecily and Cada went to the inner city while Runesight me and Raymont tried looking around some parks.

After a fruitless search, we met back at a clock shop in the market.

“So, now what?” Cecily asked, “we searched for hours and we still have some daylight left, can we have some fun?”

Cada sighed, “I guess, but look out for Ordulf and Paxton. While you're having this fun, meet back here by sunset.” 

Cecily smiled. “Yes!” she said, “Kayla come with me. I saw something that looked interesting earlier, let’s check it out!” she grabbed my arm and dragged me off to who knew where.

Finaly we stopped at a large shop. It was called  _ phoenix’s robotic technology _ . Cecily pointed at the sign excitedly.

“Robotic Technology! Maybe there are robots!” she explained.

“That would be cool yes, but if Earth doesn’t even have robots yet I very much doubt that this shop will. I mean really, this place doesn’t even have flush toilets!” I exclaimed.

Cecily shrugged, “I’m still gonna look.”

“I guess I’ll look too. but when there aren’t any robots don’t say I didn’t tell you so.” I said.

Cecily walked inside and I followed close behind her. Inside the shop was space so littered with little machines and contraptions that I could barely see the floor. At the sound of the bell on the door ringing a boy about my age poked his head out from behind a counter that was also littered with devices. 

“Woa,” said Cecily. “That is a lot of stuff.”

“Are you here looking for something in particular, or are you just browsing?” the boy asked us.

“My friend here was hoping you might have a robot,” I told him I very much doubted he would say she was right.

“Well…” he said, “we have some prototypes, do you have any money, or are you just wondering if I’ve made a robot.” I wondered if a prototype counted, I hoped not, because if it did then I would have to say Cecily was right.

“Just wondering,” Cecily said.

The boy looked longingly at the door as if hoping someone with money would come in, after a minute of nothing happening the boy sighed and motioned us toward him, “come on the prototypes are this way.” he said.

“So are you Phoenix, or is that just the name of the shop?” I asked him as he led us down to his workshop.

“Yea I’m Phoenix, I should rename the shop, maybe that would speed up business. Plus it’s weird for people I barely know to know my name.”

“You’re a little young to have your own shop,” Cecily said.

Phoenix shrugged, “I had nothing better to do, plus I’m good with tec. Sadly no one in this blasted city appreciates it very much.”

We passed more and more little trinkets that could do small things, the only difference between there and upstairs was that most of the little machines were broken. Phoenix led us to the back of his workshop and to my surprise a little mechanical orange bird with long tailfeathers flew up and landed on Phoenix’s shoulder.

“Apollo! What did I say about that!” Phoenix told the bird.

“Phoenix is back! Back soon, as he said!” the bird said. 

Phoenix sighed, “here’s my first robot prototype, Apollo, mind the pun the Phoenix.”

Apollo snuggled Phoenix’s cheek.

“I would have sold him and gotten lots of money, but Apollo won’t leave me, for some reason,” Phoenix said.

“Where’d you get the name Apollo?” I asked Phoenix.

“Apollo is the Greek god of the sun, you probably have no idea what I’m talking about but the sun, fire, phoenix’s burst into flames when they die, you get the picture,” Phoenix said.

“Are you gonna make some kind of water robot named Artemis or something?” Cecily asked.

“What’s Artemis?” I asked Cecily

“You should read old myths sometime,” Cecily told me.

Phoenix looked at Cecily in surprise, “you know the Greek gods?” he asked.

“Yea,” Cecily said, “I have a problem with reading too much, wait is it not normal to know that here?”

“Well um, I actually do have a water robot, her name is even Artemis, Rita for short, but she has some complications… this way,” 

Phoenix led us to a nearby table, on which sat a small humanoid-ish creature, it had huge hands and large catlike ears, its eyes glowed with white light, and its waist was supported by a glowing sphere the same color as its eyes. It was about a foot high.

“No matter how many times I reprogram her she never does any of the things I tell her to. It’s kind of like Apollo’s annoying tendency to follow me around, but at least he does what I ask most of the time, but Rita... 

she just sits there and moves sometimes, maybe her power source was glitchy, but I’ve replaced it at least 3 times, maybe there was a gap in my programming, but I’ve checked it over and rewrote it at least a dozen times but no matter what, she always stays like this.”

  
  


Eveningrider

“We could check every mechanical shop in town,” I suggested after 3 days of no luck in the Tim hunt. I felt a sort of pull to a small shop in the market and I wanted a reason to go check it out, plus the idea would help, so far we had kind of just asked around for anyone named Tim, and so far we had found that either Tim wasn’t here, we weren’t asking the right people, or he wasn’t going by Tim anymore. My mindreading wasn’t much help because unless I happened to hear Tim’s mind no one would probably be thinking the name Tim. plus I had no idea what he looked like, Paxton didn’t know him very well, but Ordulf and he had been friends. 

“So where would we start?” Paxton asked me. 

“Well I saw a shop in the market called… I think it was ‘robotic technology’ or something.

“That does sound a lot like Tim,” Ordulf said.

Dreamcaster

Suddenly Rita stood up.

“She does that sometimes, the last time was a few days ago,” Phoenix said.

But Rita didn’t stop there, she started walking to the other end of the table. I noticed that the joints in her short legs were made of the same glowing white substance as the connection that was her waist. Rita dropped down to the floor and ran towards the way we had come in.

Eveningrider

I ran towards the shop, barely knowing why anymore, Paxton and Ordulf were following behind me but falling farther behind with every step. Finaly the shop came into view,  _ phoenix’s Robotic technology _ it read. 

I burst through the door and ran towards the counter where a small, foot high humanoid figure stood at first when I saw it I only saw what it must have been designed after. My mark, a triangle with a circle underneath, and three raindrops spread out beneath that. But then I realized it wasn’t just the Mindgazer symbol that it was meant to be, it had huge hands and cat-like ears half the size of the head. Most of its joints were connected with a ball of white energy, it’s metal body was colored cyan and on its chest there was a glowing circle that I assumed must be its power source.

I stared at the technological wonder as it stared back at me. Finaly the little metal creature jumped from the counter and landed on my shoulder.

Dreamcaster

We all followed the little rogue robot but it was far ahead of us by the time we arrived back at the shop. We all ran past the counter asking each other where Rita went. That’s when I caught sight of her. Rita was on a strange girl’s shoulder, the girl had turned her head to the little robot and was watching it in wonder. That’s when I realized I had seen the girl somewhere before.

It was Eveningrider, the girl from the dream that told me where to look for the boys. 

The movement of us running past the counter and the noise of our arrival made Eveningrider notice us. 

She recognized me I could tell, but then she focused on Phoenix.

“Are you Timothy Arene?” she asked him. 

Phoenix frowned and nodded. “Yes, at least, that is what some people call me, I stopped going by that a while ago.”

“Well what are you going by now?” the girl asked him,

“My first name, Phoenix,” he said, 

“Your full name is Phoenix Timothy Arene?” the girl asked

“If your here to make fun of me you can leave, but can you give Artemis back first?” 

“I wasn’t going to. Nice to meet you Phoenix, I’m Eventide Emerson, but you can call me Eve.”

“Oh okay. Wait a second…” he said as the bell by the door rang. I looked over at the door and saw to my surprise, Paxton and Ordulf burst through the door panting. “ORDULF!!! Is that you!!!?” Phoenix shouted. 

“Tim! We’ve been looking for you for almost two months!” Ordulf said.

It was all very confusing, happy, and exiting at the same time. But eventually, Cecily remembered that Cada wanted us back by nightfall and went to go meet her and tell her the news. We found Ordulf and Paxton, as well as  _ two _ new earthlings. Eve kept Rita because Rita refused to leave her side, much like Apollo to Phoenix, who was currently perched on his shoulder. 

We talked and told each other our stories and after around ten minutes Cecily came back with Cada, Runesight, and Raymont in toe, Cada was very surprised by the fact that we actually found them, and Very bugged at Phoenix because apparently she knew him before.

“I thought you were dead! You jerk!” she told him, “and as I can see you followed your dream and made a bunch of mostly useless trinkets to sell. How’d that work out for you?”

Cadas eyes nearly popped out when she saw Apollo and Artemis because she really hadn’t thought Phoenix would be able to make robots.

  
  



	11. the Queen of wind

# 

#  Part 2 losses

Chapter 11 Queen of wind

Dreamcaster

After a few days of wondering what to do next Phoenix suggested we go and visit the queen and ask her if we could check her library for any possible ways home. Because apparently Cerulea had a queen. Runesight stayed at the hotel as we went to bargain with the queen.

“I understand she’s not that old, nine, or ten at most.” Phoenix said as he showed us the way to the meeting with her, “but don’t hold that against her she can be ruthless.”

“Ruthless? Really?” Raymont asked doubtfully.

“Yes really.” Cada said, “ I’ve seen plenty of ruthless ten-year-olds.”

“Um… well she’s ruthless in a different way,” Phoenix said. “anyway, here we are, her majesty’s throne room, I hope this goes well.” Phoenix pushed open a golden door covered in gemstones, and we walked into the throne room. 

The queen was wearing golden robes that were much too big for her and she was sitting on a throne designed for an adult. There was a teakettle clutched to her chest and she looked very… bored.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“We ask if we may see your beautiful library, we have been told it is the grandest in all the land and we want some information from it,” Eve said, naturally slipping into the role of our spokesperson.

“You want to see all those dusty books? Why?”

“Your grandest of majesty, we are all from Earth, and we are asking if we may use your library to find a way home,” Eve said.

The queen’s eyes flickered red, “you’re from Earth?” she said in disgust. “And you want to use  _ my _ library?” 

“Yes?” Eve wavered.

“I will not grant you entrance to my library.” the little girl sounded very grown-up all of a sudden. “I don’t want to see you ever again. Guards get them out of my sight.”

the guards threw us out and we were all stunned by the queen’s sudden hatred for us.

“What the Crap was that?” Cecily asked

“I guess we’ll have to try somewhere else,” Cada said.

“See what I mean by ruthless?” Phoenix said.

“Why’d she have to kick us out?” Raymont asked

“Maybe she has a grudge on people from Earth,” Paxton suggested.

“We could sneak in in the night and steal the information,” I suggested.

Cada looked at me like I had a death wish, “you want to be in prison for the rest of your life?”

“I’ve been in prison.” Eve said, “tip, never insult rich people. It wasn’t that bad though.”

“Okay?” Ordulf said. 

“But still, we need to know if that library has anything.” Eve said, “and I’d be willing to do anything even steal from a queen.”

“No, I won’t let any of you do it, we’ll have to try another place,” Cada said.

“Where are you suggesting?” Cecily asked.

“The library of dreams maybe,” Cada said, “I mean if we’re so set that a library would have all the answers, then…” she shrugged.

Cada led us all back to the inn but I could tell that Eve had other plans. Once we were at the inn, she pulled me aside.

“We need to go and steal that information somehow, tonight I’m going to go there and try, anyone who wants to come can just don’t tell Cada until we have it,” Eve said.

“Really?” I said happily, “need any help planning?” I asked

“No, I’ve got it all in here,” she tapped her head with a finger. “But thank you for the offer, I’ll ask everyone else, but remember, don’t tell Cada.”

By the end of the day, Cada had already made plans to leave for the Library of dreams in the morning. Apparently it was almost as far from here as Fallstar.

Before I knew it it was nighttime, we left our beds silently and creeped out of the inn. Everyone but Ordulf and Runesight came, and Cada of course.

We arrived at the castle late at night.

“Were’s the library?” Raymont asked Eve.

“I think it’s near the front of the castle,” Eve explained. “But before we go in I need to know what everyone can do magic wise. I know Paxton can fly and do some kind of Ice thing, but what about everyone else?”

“I can grow big or small and do some fire magic,” Raymont said.

“I can fly and do some lightning magic,” said Cecily.

“I can go into dreams, that’s all I know so far,” I explained.

“What about you Phoenix,” Eve asked.

“Mine is um kind of complicated, I mean look at my mark, not normal at all,” Phoenix said, showing everyone his right hand, I was able to catch a glimpse and it looked like a compass with a circle next to a line in its center.

Eve raised her eyebrows, “what are you?” she asked him, “that’s not any of the six tribes.”

Phoenix shrugged, “again, not normal. So far I’ve figured out that my magic is mostly technology-based. I mean, look at Apollo and Rita, their power sources haven’t run out since I made them plus they seem to have minds of their own. I think  _ that’s _ my magic.”

“Wow, okay. So we’re sneaking into the castle with whatever we’ve got. Raymont will turn tiny and ride in someone’s pocket so if we’re attacked we can have some backup. I’ll turn invisible and scout ahead, our goal is to be as stealthy as possible. If we get caught than our goal is to get away, if everyone but you get caught leave and get reinforcements, just try not to get caught. We don’t know how long it’ll take to find the information so if we get caught then leave, don’t keep trying.” Eve explained. “Everything understood.” everyone nodded, “okay, off we go.”

With that, we began our mission to steal the way home.


	12. the Queens library

#  Chapter 12 the queen’s library

While everyone else was on a trip to become criminals, Ordulf was doing the sensible thing, telling Cada what they were doing.

“They’re doing what?!” Cada shouted once Ordulf told her the news. “I specifically told them not to do that!”

“I know, that’s why I told you,” Ordulf said sensibly.

“Thank you,” Cada said quickly, “we need to go save them from their stupidity now, come on, let’s get runesight.

Eveningrider

I’d never tried being a leader before, but apparently, I was good at it.

If I explained to them why my way of thinking made sense and why my ideas could be possible they were pretty agreeable and did what I asked them too, and because of this, we arrived at the library without incident. 

It may have taken us a while to find but the library was a mystical place of knowledge and secrets that I had no time to uncover, I sent everyone off to separate corners of the queen’s library so we could divide and conquer. I didn’t know if we would even find anything, but it was our hope that we could get  _ something  _ before anyone found us.

An hour later I was skimming through a book about the star charts of Magicae hoping if there was anything there I wouldn’t miss it. I had gone through at least twenty other books ranging from the underwater cities of the merfolk to how to make cheese.

I didn’t know exactly what I was looking for, I didn’t know what bit of captured knowledge would be able to save us but I knew I needed to find it. After I was done with the star-chart book I moved on to another called  _ songs of the ancients _ . I thought at first that it could be some strange songbook but I was willing to believe it if there was even one line in there that had to do with getting home I would follow it.

I flipped to the first page it was titled  _ the poem of the lost. _ A strange name for a poem or song but I read the poem anyway:

_ We were home. Where is home? Home is where the heart is, they say _

_ But that was all ripped away from us _

I almost gasped at my ability to relate to the first line 

_ Random ones from random places ripped from home, placed somewhere new. _

_ Thousands of times collide past present and future.  _

_ The lost children of Earth _

That part sounded a lot like us.

_ We strive to return home. But it seems as if everything prevents that.  _

_ Homeward we search  _

_ never quite making it, but we tell ourselves we are almost there _

_ The early spring gives us hope for travel _

_ Return is impossible, some say _

_ some lost ones stay at settlements made months before _

_ We try we strive to return _

_ Never quite making it, but almost there _

_ We believe it is our destiny to return _

_ One by one we give up until it’s just me and you traveling for home _

_ Never quite making it but almost there. _

_ The lost ones sleep in the depths of their cities  _

_ Given up, accepted, forgotten their origins _

_ We will never forget _

I flipped the page

_ When the winter breeze melts away the trees _

_ When the sky shines a bright blue _

_ Homeward we sail on the strings of fate _

_ Never quite making it, but almost there _

_ Our stars are different than the ones here _

_ A starry flight between me and you _

_ Us and them, more and more came _

_ Most giving up but never us _

_ We soar homeward, never quite making it, but almost there _

_ The lost ones call from the depths of our sadness,  _

_ their song one of happiness, of acceptance _

_ their will is one and their joy so great that we will them to be returned _

_ But their destiny is not ours.  _

_ And ours is not theirs _

_ We soar on the wings of fate homeward bound _

_ But they can not soar us back home _

_ The last breaths of sadness fall from the tears of the giants _

_ We soar homeward, never quite making it, but almost there. _

_ Never quite making it, never quite remembering where _

_ Almost there _

_ Almost there  _

_ Almost there _

_ Where are we going? Home. _

_ But isn’t this home? Yes and no  _

_ generations and generations going somewhere but never quite remembering where.  _

_ The fate of those left behind  _

_ The lost children of Earth  _

_ The new children of magic _

_ The wandering tribe, looking for home. _

I frowned, why hadn’t they gotten home? The story wasn’t meant to end there. At the bottom of the page, I found a note scrawled in fancy script.  Do not make the same mistake as us. It read,  accept what has happened to you and enjoy your life on Magicae while you still can, Earth is lost to you. I found it hard to read but I got the gist of it. This person was convinced home was an impossible wish. They were convinced that no one could succeed. Well, I was determined to prove them wrong.

Next to the fancy handwriting, I wrote:

_ I can get home, I know it. And I will take all my friends to their homes too. _

I closed the book and put it in my meager pile of books that needed further investigation. The book unsettled me, what did that poem mean?

Artemis-bot

Eventide continued in her search for something. I did not know what. I only knew that soon the search would be over and Eventide would need my help. I did not know how I knew this, I just knew that it would be that way.

I sensed the one who talked too much’s power as a portal opened not far away, Eventide didn’t see it and I didn’t call her attention to it.

Out of the portal walked the one who talked too much, the kingfisher boy and the one who tried to lead when it wasn’t meant for her.

They saw Eventide and finaly she saw them. 

“What are you doing here?” Eventide asked the three newcomers in a whisper.

“We’re here to keep you, insane people, from killing yourselves.” the kingfisher boy said, also in a whisper.

“Why did you guys come here?” the one who tried to lead asked Eventide.

“Believe it or not some of us want to go home. I know the queen was hiding something because her mind didn’t feel right. It was like two people were in there. If we don’t find a way home at least we could find out what was wrong with her.”

“Your grasping at straws.” the one who tried to lead said.

“You know, this place is weird, I’ve only been to a few libraries but this one is different. It’s got a weird feel to it.” the one who talked to much said. 

Everyone else ignored the one who talked too much and continued arguing, but I thought she must have a point. I felt it too.

One of the others who had been searching the library came into the room presumably after hearing the noise. It was the one with lightning.

The lightning girl looked at the one who tried to lead in surprise.

“Guys keep it down I could hear you from the other side of the library,” she said

I sensed movement and saw all the others who had been searching had also come to investigate the noise.

“We’re being too loud, we need to leave now before anyone unwanted hears us, we can argue about this once we’re back at the inn.” the nocturnal boy said. Eventide nodded and pulled her small pile of books she had decided might have something into her pack.

“Come on let’s go before we get caught.” Eventide said.

“Who says you haven’t been caught.” a voice said, out of the darkness stepped the young East Wind/queen clutching her prison/teakettle tightly in one hand, in her other hand was a knife and in one quick movement she brought it to the nearest person’s throat, it was the throat of the one who tried to lead. “Let’s make this easy. And maybe your friend won’t have to die.”


	13. the East Wind

# 

#  Chapter 13 The East Wind

Artemis-bot

The one who tried to lead stiffened at the touch of the cold metal to her neck. Behind the queen/East Wind were three castle guards holding swords. 

Everyone froze once they figured out what was happening. I knew what to do. I jumped from where I was perched on Eventide’s shoulder and landed a few feet away on the one who talks to much’s shoulder. In her ear I said:

“ _ Take everyone you can somewhere safe once you get your chance. Use your magic.” _

Then I jumped back to Eventide.

Dreamcaster

The second I saw the queen I knew we were doomed. But I wasn’t going to go out without a struggle. The room wasn’t that large but it was big enough for everyone that was there to be able to walk a bit. Eventide was the furthest from the two entrances because she had been the first one in there. The door was right next to me but I wasn’t planning on leaving. 

There was no way I would let everyone here die just because I wanted to live. I was determined that we would all live. 

The room had lot’s of bookshelves but no tables or chairs I had noticed that there were more of those in other rooms

“What do you want?” I asked the queen, hoping to stall enough for someone to figure out a plan.

“I want what I had before! But the Earthlings took that from me! It’ll never be the same ever again!” the queen shook in anger the teakettle still clutched tightly to her. 

A teakettle? Maybe I could do something with that… she seemed  _ really _ attached to it. I was already trying to find a way to take it from her without Cada getting hurt when what she said hit me. Earthlings had done _ something _ to her, and she wanted revenge. That wasn’t healthy for a ten-year-old.

“What did Earthlings do to you?” Eventide asked, her brow furrowing

“They took my freedom! They restricted me! They trapped me in this Basted teakettle!” she held the teakettle closer, if it was even possible, and glared at us. “I used to fly freely, I used to have more magic than this place could hold! I used to be more powerful than The Eye Of Eclipse! I was more ancient than Eclipse too, I was created at the dawn of this world before the dragons were even thought up!”

I stared at the young queen in confusion, and I could tell everyone else was too, the guards behind her looked uneasy, but continued looking at us menacingly. 

I saw Eve gasp, and I wondered what her mindreading was picking up from all this.

“What are you?” Eve asked the queen with growing confusion on her face. 

“I am The East Wind!” the queen yelled, a massive wind came through the room and caused books to fall open and turn pages, loose papers fluttered throughout the room. In the confusion Eve stepped towards the mad queen and grabbed her teakettle, obviously having come to the same conclusion about it as I had. 

Eveningrider

Only one thought went through my head, I  _ had _ to save Cada, she was here because  _ I _ had convinced everyone to come, and if she got hurt, or worse killed, I would blame myself. 

There was something unnatural about this queens mind like two people were battling for control, I had no doubt that  _ one _ of them was the East Wind like she had said, the other was the queen’s true mind. 

As I grabbed the teakettle the mind of the East Wind became stronger as it realized what I was doing.

“Stop right there Mindgazer.” the East Wind said, bringing the queens knife closer to Cada’s neck “unless you want your friend to never get up again.” Cada struggled to get her neck away from the knife. 

I heard a whisper in my ear,  _ “You cannot save her, she will die here and she knows it, The East Wind is blinded by hatred, you must separate the queen and the Wind, the one who tried to lead will not blame you. You must separate the Queen and The Wind before the East Wind kills you all.” _ I felt the familiar weight of Rita on my shoulder, I had no idea that Rita could talk, I supposed Apollo could but I hadn’t thought about it. 

_ Fucus Eve!  _ I scolded myself

I had no idea why Artemis thought that Cada wouldn’t live, there was no way I would let anyone die.

But first I had to separate the Wind and the Queen.

I quickly got a better hold on the teakettle and pulled, the East Wind, being in the body of a ten-year-old, wasn’t as strong as me, even though I was only three years older than her. Cada looked at me with pleading eyes as I tugged, the queen’s weak muscles, as well as the fact that she was only holding it with one arm, allowed me to pull the teakettle free. 

I stumbled backward with the teakettle in my arms the East Winds mind enveloped mine in anger the ten-year-old queen’s knife slipped and I watched in horror as Cada collapsed. 

I barely had time to think as my attention was forced back at the mind of the East Wind as it tried to force it’s way past my barriers, I fought back against the mental attack as I tried to get to Cada, the sooner I knew she was okay, the sooner I could deal with the East Wind. 

I crawled towards Cada and managed to see a deep cut by her throat before the East Wind broke through my barriers. The queen’s knife had slipped when I pulled the teakettle free. 

Cada was gone.

My hope was bleak as I realized she was dead, I couldn’t afford to lose anyone else. I screamed in fury as I fought back against the increasingly powerful mental assaults of the East Wind. I tried to release the teakettle in the hopes that that would separate our minds, but my hands wouldn’t let go. 

** _Give in already Mindgazer! _ ** The East Wind roared to my mind as if confused why I was still fighting. 

_ No. _ I told it firmly,  _ No No No.  _

** _Your friend is dead, and all the rest are leaving without you._ ** The East Wind told me, a quick look in the direction of the other Earthlings showed me a silvery portal where everyone else had been standing. Runesight was keeping it open on the side, while the soldiers who had come with the queen were standing by in confusion. 

_ I won’t let you kill anyone else.  _

** _I told you I wouldn’t tolerate you in my library. _ ** The Wind said.  ** _It’s not my fault you didn’t listen. _ **

I could see runesights portal closing. 

I fought back against the Wind until I was able to throw the teakettle across the room.

The second the kettle was out of my arms I started falling. I fell and fell and fell through the silvery blue halls of the Crystal tunnels.


	14. afterward

# 

# Chapter 14 afterward

Peacekeeper

I tumbled out of the portal, landing expertly on my face. A minute or so later, something, or rather someone, landed on top of me. I groaned and got up dumping Cecily off me. I expected everyone else to come out after us, but the portal closed. 

_Great_ _now were separated again._ I sighed at the space where the portal had been.

“Any idea where we might be?” Cecily asked me. 

I shrugged. “If we’re not in the dragon lands than we’ll survive.” 

Cecily nodded, “I wonder where everyone else ended up.”

“I don’t know… but… did you see? Cada…” my voice wavered.

“Yes I did, she’s gone…” Cecily said sadly.

“So now what,” I said.

“I guess we keep moving and hope that we can find the others, I didn’t see Eventide get through a portal though,” Cecily said.

“Runesight wouldn’t have left her,” I said.

We moved onward from that spot, no longer hoping that the portal would magically re-open, and take us to everyone else.

We flew as far as we could, and when our flying muscles got sore, we walked. We traveled until we arrived at the ocean later in the day. Far in the distance, I could see a wall of fog. A sign that told us the mistlands were nearby. However, the mist curved the wrong way for us to be outside of it. 

Now we knew where we were, we just had no idea how we could get back through the fog wall. 

月亮

Yuèliàng flew off from her mother's meeting. She crossed the bay of Dragons towards Tyront Peninsula in an attempt to find her brother and keep him out of whatever trouble he was undoubtedly getting himself into. 

She just hoped he wasn’t going to go off and burn down another human village, it would be _ very _ hard to explain why she didn’t want some lousy humans to die.

Dreamcaster

I screamed in grief once I fell out of the portal. Landing on my feet but falling as they gave out underneath me. All of my pent up emotions came out with the force of my cry. 

Cada was dead, we were no closer to getting home, and everything was going wrong.

It took me a moment to realize that I had landed on my foot awkwardly and it was evidently twisted once I did, I added my stupid luck to the scream.

Now it was just me. No one else was here, and the portal was already closed.

My rage cooled to annoyance as I examined my surroundings. I wanted to be able to joke with someone, to get reassured and reassure someone in return, but no one was around

I was in the middle of nowhere I was ticked off at the universe for giving me the worst luck ever, I was sick of people, and someone had just died basically in front of my face without me being able to do anything.

For a little bit I felt a glimmer of hope that maybe I could have seen wrong, that once I found everyone, cada would be there telling us all to go to bed, or trying to convince everyone that it would be safer if we went back to pamorphalo.

But I knew that I had seen right. If only Eventide had waited for a better opening to attack the mad queen.

I stared back off into the distance and saw smoke. Perhaps it was a campfire. The hope that maybe I wasn't alone again and the disgust at maybe having to deal with people came to me at the same time.

Regardless I traveled in that direction. 

After ten minutes I noticed that there was _ way _ to much smoke for a campfire. I started running.

A huge building was on fire...

After a bit of looking, I saw a black dragon circling the flaming building. It soon became evident that the dragon was burning it down. Every now and then it would add more flame to the blaze until the black dragon paused and flew away to a nearby hill.

Like a crazy person, I followed it.

月亮

Yuè watched the insignificant human library burn. There was a strange sadness deep inside her like, all that stuff that humans thought they knew was important somehow. It was sad that a race that could build something so large didn’t even know that dragons were intelligent or that they could speak with the humans if they wanted to. 

The ice dragon sighed and looked over at her idiotic brother who had started the fire.

“You know mom is still going to kill you for burning that down. Right?” she asked him. “She doesn’t want to do anything to the humans to make them wipe us out before we migrate.”

“Yuè, you don’t have to rub in the fact that I’ll probably have to move to the far planes,” he growled to her.

“Just hope she’s in a forgiving mood when she hears about it.” Yuè shooed him off. “Now go hide and let her simmer down before you show your snout in the daylight again.” 

The small black dragon looked at her nervously.

“How long should I hide?” he asked her.

“Tài, she has an entire army to look for you once she hears about it, the sooner you find a good place to hide, the longer you’ll have for her to calm down.” Yuè shooed him off again. “I’m just glad I don’t have to hide, I had nothing to do with this.” 

Tài took one last look at his sister and bolted away taking flight as he went.

Yuè watched the black dragon soar away, only relaxing when he was out of sight. The two siblings were the exact opposite of each other. Tài's scales were black with bolts of electricity-like blue. Plus he could breathe fire. Yuè, however, was a mostly pure white color. There were sparkles of light blue and silver along her spine. She took after her mother, who was also an ice dragon. While her brother took after their father, an electricity dragon.

Yuè looked back at the piles of rubble that used to be a magnificent library. She just wished that humans would stop being so dumb. Then maybe the other dragons could respect their ideas more like she was beginning to do and, maybe if the humans stopped being jerks the dragons wouldn’t have to move.

Yuè shook herself. Don’t think like that! That’s probably what made _ him _ turn a traitor! The thought that humans were anything more than lower creatures made Yuè wonder, what had made her father do what he did?

While she was thinking about that, Yuè noticed that a human had just rounded a hill into her sight. The weirdest part was that it was familiar. It took Yuè a minute to place her human face because, in her opinion, most humans looked the same. 

But she was evidently the human from her dream about a month ago. The one that made her realize that the humans had _ no idea _ why they had magic. 


	15. pineapples

# 

# Chapter 15 pineapples

Dreamcaster

It was the dragon that was in that weird dream a while ago. Just sitting there staring at me. This wasn’t the dragon I followed over here! Where did the black dragon go? 

The dragon tilted its head at me.

“_ You were in my dream, _” she said. Her voice in reality was strange like it was boring into my mind.

“Um, I guess so…” I said, “but you seem a lot calmer than back then.”

“_ So you really have no idea what my father did? _” she asked ignoring my comment.

“No, I don’t even know who he is.”

“_ Was. _ ” she corrected. “ _ perhaps his name will remind you? it was Yǔzhòu. Does that ring any bells? _”

“No,” I said truthfully.

The dragon sighed a long drawn out sigh. “_ Then perhaps I can forgive the humans if they had nothing to do with his betrayal… _”

“What did he do?” I asked in growing curiosity, what could he have done that would cause his entire family to hate him?

The dragon glared at the distant sky. “_ He gave humans magic. _”

“Wait, I thought humans on Magicae always had magic,” I said in confusion. “I mean I’m from Earth so maybe I’m missing something, but I thought we always had it.”

The dragon burst out laughing. Or I assumed it was laughing, it sounded odd. Once she was done she tried to explain. “_ At the dawn of this world, dragons were the only creatures with magic, until a hundred thousand years ago when my father gave magic to all living things in this world. He betrayed us, magic was our birthright and ours alone, and after his world-altering spell, we were forced to share it, _” she shifted to a sitting position., and stopped smiling.

“_ Or at least that’s what I’m told, it was long before I hatched. I’m told that after his betrayal, my egg took unusually long to hatch. My mother looked after it, for a hundred years until I finaly came out. To this day no one knows why it took so long. But my mother blames my father. After his betrayal, he fell to the earth, and never got back up…” _

“That’s… really sad.” I said, thinking of my parents back home.

“_ So why are you here? _” the dragon asked.

“I uh. There was a black dragon burning down a building, and it flew over here, I wanted to know why.”

The dragon smirked. “_ That would be Tai, my older brother, I sent him into hiding to think about what he has done. My mother does not like him angering humans because then the dragonslaying rates go up. _” 

I smiled, “that sounds like he got what was coming for him.”

“_ So, you are from earth? Let me guess, you’re looking for the way home? Like all the other poor earthlings? _” she asked.

“How’d you know?” I asked shocked.

“_ Did you not hear? ‘Like all the other poor earthlings.’ all the earthlings try I just didn’t know if you had given up yet. _”

“Oh. ok. Well I was trying to get home with my friends, but lots of confusing things happened, we tried to break into the queen of Cerulea’s library, but it didn’t end well and one of my friends died, and now we’re all separated. And nothing is going how we want it too. So I’m thinking about giving up.” my mood went downhill as I said it.

“_ Oh just because getting back to earth is extremely hard, doesn’t mean that it is, in fact impossible. I can think of one way that may work. But it involves Eclipse, and the forbidden planes, and all sorts of luck. If you want to find your friends, you do realize you can dreamscape them? Right? You are a dreamscaper. _”

I stared at her as what she was saying hit me. “I’m a dreamscaper! I can go into their dreams and find them! What the crap am I doing here feeling sorry for myself!” I shouted for joy then turned back to the dragon. “What’s your plan that might work?”

"Oh, it's great. To pull it off you need a worldpasser or a boat, your Earth-buddies, and a magic relic guarded by the most ancient dragon out there."

"oh don't forget a pineapple!" 

"What's the pineapple for?"

"Oh that's for me, it's been a while since I had one."

Yuè just looked at me in confusion

"Well, it's been nice meeting you, I'm Kayla, lover of pineapples and jokes. Why are you helping me again?"

"Because you opened my eyes to humans being ignorant, now I see they are far more strange than I originally assumed, I am Yuè liàng. Now, this is how it's going to work..."

  
  


Eveningrider

Connection lost. The connection has gone.

Peacekeeper

The mistlands are impossible to get to, and we were in the middle of them.

“How the crap are we supposed to get out of the mist?” Cecily asked.

“I have no idea, but there is no way we’re flying through that, and there’s also no way we can find a boat that can get us out.”

“Hey, who are you?” 

We turned and saw a boy around Kayla’s age staring at us. He was evidently a weatherwatcher because of his moth wings.

“Um,” I said.

“You _ both _ have feathers!” he exclaimed. And he flew off.

“That wasn’t just my imagination right?” I asked Cecily, “you saw that too?”

“That was weird. Like really weird. He made it seem like weatherwatchers don’t usually have feathers.” Cecily said. I nodded.

A few minutes later the boy was back, with more people, who all had wings. But none of them had feathers. They all looked at us for a minute as we tried to ask what was going on. And then they all flew off in different directions, only to come back not long later with _ more _ people. 

It kept repeating until people stopped flying away and they were all just standing there staring at our very much, feathered wings. I noticed that none of them had feathers. Their wings were all insectile and even a few batlike ones, but none other than us were feathered. 

Eventually, the first boy came back again, but this time with a single weatherwatcher. She had feathers and fancy clothes. She examined us with an air of importance.

“Who are you?” she asked and the excited chatter of the other weatherwatchers died down so they could listen.

“I’m Cecily and this is Paxton,” Cecily said. I facepalmed why did everyone have problems with this part except for me? 

“Cecily, we have fake names for a reason.”

“How did you get here? I know of no other Feathered people here.” 

“We uh, we have a friend who can make portals and we ended up here by accident,” Cecily said. I nearly slapped my face again. This was going _ so well _.


	16. Chapter 16

# 

# Chapter 16 Dreamscaping & Mythfell

月亮

“Now, this is how it’s going to work,” Yuè said. “We use the boat or worldpasser to get to Engere, then we use the permanent portals there to get to the forbidden plane of imitation. And then we steal the imitator from Eclipse, and we use it to make time portals to send you guys home- uh wait…” Yuè silently cursed herself, what about the migration? Kayla and her friends wouldn’t be safe on Earth.

“What is it?”

“Oh nothing we get you guys home and you all live happily ever after the end,” Yuè said quickly.

Kayla smiled, “I’ll go contact them, and then I can go find them, what are you going to do?”

Yuè shifted on her feet uneasily, “I might help you find your friends, but first I need to go talk to my mother.”

Kayla nodded.

"I'll go now, dreamscape me if something unprecedented happens," Yuè said. She took off before Kayla could say anything.

She flew back the way she had come as quickly as she could. Over the bay of dragons, and towards the ever high mountains to her mother, so she could stop the migration.

Dreamcaster

I watched Yuè fly away. That was weird. She just left. I didn't dwell on it, my heart was too full of happiness to focus on it. 

I had a possible way home and I needed to share it.

***

Finally, after a very long night, I knew where almost everyone was. Cecily and Paxton were in the mistlands, Raymont was in some obscure fishing village, ordulf was in the desert, Phoenix and Eventide and Runesight were either not asleep, or something was happening that prevented me from contacting them. Because all I knew was they were alive.

I tried contacting cada, but as I expected it was like hitting a wall of nothingness, even my powers knew she was gone. It was different from trying to contact someone who was awake when I did that I got a hazy image of what they were doing. Death gave me only blackness.

We had agreed to meet at a village called silverside, apparently the closest port village to Engere. Cecily and Paxton would have a hard time getting off of the mistlands, but they would figure it out. The bad part however was that silverside was _ months _ away on foot, I needed a quick way to get there.

I wondered if there were any caravans I could join…

Peacekeeper

We followed the girl with feathers. Her name turned out to be Swift. She led us to a village where I assumed all the Weatherewatchers had come from. It was rare to have a village without any other tribe because families usually had all kinds of tribes in them, just look at Echoflares family, two Sizemagicians, a Dreamscaper, and a Mindgazer. 

To be fair they had fresh Earth genes in their family, and that tended to make the tribes more random, but in a normal village, there were all kinds of tribes. Unless the village was extremely old, and all the Earth Genes that made the tribes so random had been bread out. Which I supposed this village must be.

The village was very well established, the houses were made of stone, evidently carved out of the large boulders scattered throughout the hilled valley. I figured they must have come from a glacier. Swift led us to a slightly larger stone/boulder house and walked inside, we followed.

The house had a single floor but there was a ladder that led to the roof. The room had bookshelves with various titles, and a desk shoved off into a corner, a single bed was hidden on the far side of the house in a separate part sectioned off with a wall. Swift closed the door after looking around to make sure no one else was nearby. She relaxed, then she examined us from head to toe.

“You are from the mainland, Melarje, correct?” Swift asked. 

We nodded.

“Welcome to mythfell, the smaller city in the mistlands. I have one request. When you leave- which I know you will -take some of us with you.” Swift said. “Lots of us want to explore other lands.” I had a strange feeling that she was talking about herself. 

  
  


***

Turned out she had in fact been talking about herself, and only herself. Everyone else was content to stay in their village. 

In the past two days, Cecily and I had been brainstorming ways to get off the island, all the ways involved, flying across the ocean, or building a boat. The problem was we had no idea which part of the mistlands was closest to the archipelago of wishes, for all we knew we could be facing it right now, or we could be facing the open ocean for _ miles _before ending up in the south pole or something. 

The mist obscured our possibility to use a telescope or something, not that it would be easy to see that far anyway.

Eventually, we decided to use a boat- even though we had no idea how to build one -, there was no way we could fly that far even if we were right and the archipelago was right there, from the archipelago you could see the mist wall in the far distance, and right now it was far in the distance, so that would mean if we got through the mist we would be able to see the archipelago. 

All this nonsense would have been able to be fixed if we had a compass. 

We didn’t have a compass, and neither did anyone in Mythfell.

So we set about trying to build a boat, hopefully without failing too horribly.


	17. Chapter 17

# 

#  Chapter 17 Pineapples (yes again)

月亮 

One day later, Yuè arrived at the ever high mountains and Castle Dragon. She landed at her mother’s throne room and strode in, very much hoping that she wasn’t busy. 

“Yuè! Have you seen your brother, he burned a human library! I need to teach him a lesson!” Xīng said in anger. 

“I caught him once he was done, and advised him to hide while you cooled down.”

“But! He needs to learn his lesson!” Xīng shouted.

Yuè shrugged, “well he’s gone now.”

Xīng frowned but accepted it, “anyways I have a meeting, so if he comes back you are to direct him to me.”

“Wait, mom, what if… what if it’s not a good idea to take over the no magic planet...” 

“Yuè, what else would we do? We can move to the no magic, and then take over, the humans there have not slain dragons since magic leaked there a few thousand rounds ago, they will not remember how so taking over would not cost us a large number of lives.” Xīng said sensibly.

“What if killing thousands of humans and taking their lands, isn’t right…” Yuè said.

“Why would it not be right? They are killing hundreds of us here, and we have less in numbers.”

“But, um.” Yuè almost said what she was thinking,  _ what if you’re wrong? _ “What if, the humans there don’t deserve to die? They aren’t the ones slaying us.”

“Yuè. all humans are the same. Don’t ever let me hear you say that again. It’s far too like something your  _ father _ would say.” Xīng said the word father bitterly. 

“Yes, mother…” 

“Now go hunt down your brother, I still need to have a word with him about endangering our race.”

Yuè flew off and tried to sort out her jumbled thoughts. Her mother didn’t care about innocent humans, she was perfectly fine with humans going extinct if it meant that dragons would be safe. Yuè began to wish her Father was still there so she could ask him what was right. For the first time in her life, Yuè realized that he wasn’t bad, he just hadn’t been burdened by the thoughts that humans didn’t deserve to live. 

Now Yuè wanted to be like him.

She flew back to where she had left Kayla and decided that no matter what her mother thought there was at least one human who did not deserve to die, Kayla’s life was a mess because of Magicae, and Yuè would help her fix it. The Earthlings were innocent of the dragon blood that the natives had shed.

Dreamcaster

After I was done contacting everyone I searched the small town beside the once beautiful library and found a caravan heading northwest, the direction I needed to go. Three days later I was traveling with the caravan and we were making good progress. It would still take  _ months _ but I would be traveling in the safety of a group. After a week or so we arrived where the Caravan was headed and I went in search of another one. 

I was about to tell the caravan I had just found that I was going with them, but then I heard wingbeats and saw the shine of sparkling white scales and I looked up to see Yuè. she flew off to a secluded spot and I followed laughing at the man’s face.

“ _ I will take you to Silverside and wait with you for your friends. _ ”

“Oh thank you that’ll take so much less time!” I exclaimed “so how are we doing this? do I ride on you? Do you need a saddle or do I ride bareback, or what?”

Yuè snorted, “ _ I’m carrying you in my talons, that would be very embarrassing if I wore a saddle. Dragons simply do not wear those, it’s undignified. If you need anything for travel, best get it now. _ ”

“Like a saddle?” I said teasingly.

“ _ If you want to be a block of ice then I encourage you to keep ticking off the dragon who can make you into one. _ ”

I shrugged and examined her sharp talons, “you’d better not kill me with those. I don’t have any money so there’s no way I’ll be able to get any supplies, I was eating from what the caravans were giving me.”

“ _ Then how do you expect to live the week it’ll take to get to Silverside? _ ” Yuè asked with a frown. 

“I have no idea, but I’m sure I’ll come to me.”

Yuè growled, “ _ how are you still alive? _ ”

I smiled, “again, I have no idea, I’m sure it has something to do with pineapples.” it had nothing to do with pineapples but I really wanted one.

“ _ You said you haven’t had one in a while! _ ”

“Exactly, but that was last week. A lot can happen in a week.” that was a lie, I  _ still _ hadn’t had one since I ended up there.

“ _ Please tell me I’m not going to regret personally taking you to silverside. _ ”

“It’s okay I can tone it down,” I said, realizing that I was being far to…  _ Kayla _ for her at the moment.

“ _ Thank you, well if you can’t get anything for lack of money I suppose we’ll have to go now, _ ” Yuè said.

We left soon after, with Yuè’s talons wrapped around my waist.

Flying was so strange, it reminded me a bit like being in the Crystal tunnels, but with less crystal. 

It was amazing to have the sky both below and above me, unhindered by the ground, well mostly, gravity was still a thing, but the air around me was so… calming. I found myself falling asleep.


	18. Chapter 18

# 

#  Chapter 18 Yǔzhòu

Peacekeeper 

No one ever explained to me that building a boat was so complicated. We weren’t going to build a big boat, just one that could hold three people and some supplies for a day and a half at sea.

But it was still  _ way _ too complicated for my peace of mind.

Cecily was trying to translate the instructions that Swift had found into readable English, without so many technical terms, and I was laying on my stomach wondering if it would be better to just make a raft and just fly after we passed the mist. 

But no Swift and Cecily were using instructions for a more complicated but more stable boat and it would take at least a week and a half just to get all the supplies. The other weather watchers were helping us a lot but none of them had experience building boats either so it wasn’t much of an improvement.

Eveningrider

No connection

Dreamcaster

I sifted through my bag and chomped up the last of my dried fruit from Pamorphalo, I was about to close my bag again when something caught my eye. It was my sound recorder. 

It must have been in the pocket of my hoodie and fell out when I shoved it in my bag.

I grabbed it, turned it on, and played the most recent song.

It was nearly perfect. 

My heart ached. I hadn’t played my Violin in almost two months. I doubted that if I got home I would be able to replicate this recording for months. No not if,  _ when _ .

Yuè looked over at me “ _ where is that sound coming from? _ ”

“This.” I held up the recorder. 

“ _ What’s that? _ ”

“It’s a sound recorder, I used it to record my music and see where I needed to improve.” I tried to explain “it’s from Earth.”

“ _ Oh, I’ve heard about Earth things, it’s like magic but less powerful? _ ”

“Sure let’s go with that.” I shifted things around in my backpack hoping I might have some trail mix or something that I hadn’t eaten yet. There was no such object in the pack. I sighed, “I’m out of food. I should last a few more hours because I just ate the last of it, but I need  _ Something _ .” I smiled, “preferably pineapple.”

Yuè shook her head. “ _ You are obsessed. _ ”

“I’m not denying the truth.” 

“ _ I guess you can beg, or steal, or we could go hunting… _ ”

“Let’s go hunting I’m a horrible beggar, and stealing isn’t good.”

“ _ I seriously doubt that you’ve been hunting before. _ ”

“Well, your right.”

“ _ I can catch something but you have to cook it for yourself. _ ”

“Deal.”

***

I never wanted to have to clean a rabbit again, I’ve eaten rabbit before at home because Cheyenne is  _ full _ of rabbits and people sometimes hunt them, but I never had to do any of the dirty work, we would just eat rabbit for dinner sometimes. 

It was so gross.

The rabbit tasted good though and I saved some of the slightly burnt meat for the next day.

Yuè found my reaction to the rabbit comical, and I really wanted to shove a saddle on her for that, and parade her around her dragon friends and have them all laugh at her, but I doubted I would live long enough to enjoy it.

We continued on our journey, we were now halfway there, and almost to a city called nakonua where we would rest for a day.

***

Finaly 6 days after we started, we soared into the sky of Silverside.

Silverside was a huge city that had a wall around it but the many many houses had long since been built outside the wall as well as inside. There was a moderate amount of farmland nearby, but not enough to be the sole source of food for so many people. The port was teeming with activity, even early in the morning as the sun had just barely lifted above the horizon. We soared above the city, so high overhead that if anyone looked up they would think Yuè was just a bird or some magical creature.

Yuè flew towards the mountains to find a suitable cave to sleep in, she had flown all night so we could get here, and we were both tired.

Peacekeeper

Finaly. FINALY! We were done with the accursed boat! We were leaving for the archipelago of wishes in the morning. 

Dreamcaster

We flew into a cave a mile or so from the outskirts of the town. It was a deep cave full of darkness and it made me feel like something was using the darkness to spy on us. 

Yuè landed at the bottom of the cave and folded her wings looking around.

“ _ I wish I had fire, then I could see how big this cave is, _ ” Yuè said with a yawn, I agreed with her, there was something off about this cave.

“I would say we could sleep in the open but I doubt the people of silverside would appreciate you so close.”

“ _ No kidding, I’m never doing what we did at Nakouna ever again. I’ve seen enough human swords to last me a lifetime. _ ”

I laughed, “Don’t forget the fire.”

“ _ Again, I wish I had my brother’s fire right now. These shadows are creeping me out. _ ”

“Before I met you I had no idea that Dragons could be afraid of the dark.” I pointed out.

Yuè snorted, “ _ you’re afraid of it too. In fact- _ ” Yuè stopped and narrowed her eyes in the dark.

“What?”

“ _ I can hear something breathing, _ ” Yuè said quietly, “ _ at first I thought it was you, but humans are far too small for that amount of breath. _ ”

“Maybe it’s you.” I pointed out sensibly. Yuè flicked me with the end of her tail and pointed into the shadows.

“ _ There’s a black dragon down here. _ ” once she pointed it out I could easily see the faint light reflecting off its shiny black scales. “ _ Come on let’s go before he wakes up. _ ”

“ _ I have a feeling it’s too late for that little one, young ones yammering is  _ very _ hard to sleep through. _ ” A large green eye opened in the dark. “ _ I must say I’ve never seen a human child and an ice dragon arguing like old friends, _ ” his eye moved to examine us I froze in fear. “ _ You little ice dragon look Just like Xīng. _ ”

“ _ She’s my mother, _ ” Yuè said shakily. “ _ I’m, princess Yuè liàng. _ ”

The black dragon snorted. “ _ I highly doubt that Xīng hates humans, and as I said before you two seem to know each other. _ ”

“Who’s Xīng?” I asked barely following the conversation.

“ _ The Queen of the Dragons, _ ” the black dragon turned back to Yuè, “ _ she  _ is _ still queen, right? They didn’t kick her off after- _ ”

“ _ No, she’s still queen, _ ” Yuè said before he could finish his sentence, “ _ how long have you been down here that you don’t know that? _ ”

The black dragon closed his eyes in thought. “_Longer than I probably needed to…_” he turned his attention to me. “_little human, what’s your name?_”

“Kayla,” I said with a squeak.

“ _ Well Kayla, can you do magic? _ ”

“Uh,” I said worried that he would ask for a demonstration. “Yes?”

I couldn’t see his face in the darkness, and dragon emotions were very hard to read but I could have sworn he smiled. “ _ So it worked then. I guess it all might have been worth it. _ ”

月亮

Yuè froze and stared at him. One word kept repeating through her head.“ _ What worked? _ ” her voice was high and panicky.

“ _ Why, giving the humans magic, of course, I’d assume that everyone else has a grudge on me don’t they? What? Why are you staring at me like that? Am I famous or something? Well, I suppose everyone would know me… _ ” he frowned in contemplation and when Yuè didn’t say anything he sighed, “ _ I’m Yǔzhòu, what do they call me? Destroyer of inheritance? Softhearted human-lover? Breaker of Queen’s hearts? _ ”

Yuè could think of many things that Dragons called him, she had heard most of them in association with herself but there was only one word that she wanted to call him.“ _ Dad? _ ” Yuè said hesitantly.


	19. Chapter 19

# 

#  Chapter 19 next step

Peacekeeper

We arrived at the archipelago of wishes barely, the boat had fallen apart halfway between the archipelago and the mist wall and we had to grab supplies and fly before the boat sank. It didn’t surprise me that the boat fell apart, it was made by a couple of amateurs. But we had worked so hard on it that I had developed some sort of pride in our work, however shabby it might have been, I had been sad to see it sink. But we flew and  _ barely _ made it to the nearest island, and from there we Island hopped flying until we reached the mainland the next evening. 

We arrived at the city Nakonua very  _ very _ exhausted, 3 days later we continued on our journey to silverside, leaving Swift at Nakonua.

Dreamcaster

My mind was racing, Yuè’s dad wasn’t dead. She  _ did  _ say that he fell to the earth and never got up, so maybe everyone had misunderstood and he had just been asleep the entire time.

All I knew was that Yuè was ecstatic, and so was her dad.

“ _ I have a daughter! _ ”  Yǔzhòu exclaimed.

“ _ Why didn’t you figure it out earlier? I told you who my mom is. _ ”  Yuè said.

“ _ I assumed that she had remated… plus you don’t seem… quite the right age. _ ”

“ _ Something happened and my egg took extremely long to hatch. _ ”

“ _ Oh, I see, and how did you meet this Human friend of yours? _ ”

“ _ Long story, she’s from Earth and want’s to get back. _ ”

Yǔzhòu frowned, “ _ when I cast the spell, I thought it would give the humans portals as well. Is that not the case? _ ”

“ _ Their portals are, for some odd reason, unable to travel to the other planes or to no magic. We were planning on getting around it by stealing the eye of Eclipse. _ ”

“ _ Are we talking about the same Eclipse? She is very… protective, of the imitator, and if you get it she will follow you and get it back. Like she did to the poor fools who took her eye in the first place. _ ” Yǔzhòu said seriously.  _ “And I see your point, the permanent portal rooms do not lead to no magic. _ ”

“So Eclipse is the only way I can get home? And my friends, they’re coming too.”

“ _ Yes, little human. _ ” Yǔzhòu said, “ _ Eclipse is the only one who can help you. And considering no earthling has ever returned home, I highly doubt she will be up for bargaining. But it is your only way.”  _ Yǔzhòu sighed long and gustily. “ _ I’ll help you. _ ”

#  Inbetween

Skyfall

“I fell out of the sky last week. I have no idea where I came from, my memory is gone, and… well, I have this strang urge that I need to be somewhere.” I said.

The king nodded and waved his hand in the air. A stream of blue light flowed out of his hand and circled me. It returned to him. And he gazed at me with a thoughtful expression “You reek of Magic. And not just the magic here. Other types that do not operate here. Does the name Magicae ring any bells to you?” the king asked me.

At the word Magicae, a strong emotion surfaced. What was it? Finaly I placed it,  _ loss _ ,  _ anger _ ,  _ fear _ .

I frowned. “There’s definitely something familiar about it,” I said.

“Do you remember your name?”

“No. that was one of the first things I noticed.”

flamebird

I tinkered with Apollo’s mechanics. As Runesight chattered on and on about something unimportant. The second I had fallen out of that portal Apollo had stopped absorbing the magic in the air to operate, I had no idea why it wasn’t working. 

I sighed and put his parts back together so I couldn’t lose them. There was no sense wasting precious daylight. 

I walked out of the trees and stopped dead. Runesight followed me. A city was stretched out before me. Large and beautiful, and so… not Magicae. I gasped as I realized the skyscrapers were definitely not on Magicae. At all. This was a city on Earth. 

“That’s a weird city,” Runesight observed.

_ I’m home _ I realized. That was why Apollo wasn’t working. There was no magic in the air to absorb.


	20. Chapter 20

# 

#  Part 3 Eclipse

Chapter 20 Engere

Dreamcaster

After the whole  Yǔzhòu-not-being-dead everything started being normal, Ordulf got to Silverside two weeks after we met Yǔzhòu,  Cecily and Paxton arrived at silverside a month later, Raymont took almost two months.

I had tried numerous times to contact, Runesight, Phoenix, and Eventide, but to no avail. We had no idea where they might be and my blurry visions of what they were doing were not clear enough to see the background. 

So we had to go to Engere without them.

Right then we were on a boat because Yuè and  Yǔzhòu didn’t want to carry all of us. Even though they totally could have.

The two dragons had flown ahead to avoid giving the captain of the boat a heart attack. A wise move on their part because the entire trip he was ranting about how a dragon killed his brother in law and how he wanted to kill them all for that.

“But if you kill a dragon then the dragons will kill more humans and the humans will kill more dragons until we wipe each other out,” I told him sensibly.

He looked at me weirdly and looked out to sea ignoring me. Once I left, I heard him continue his rant.

We were going to be at sea for three miserable weeks, and I was not enjoying it. Raymont kept getting seasick all over the outside of the boat, there was the captain, and Ordulf wouldn’t stop playing pranks. Normally I have a good sense of humor, but when the same bucket of water, falls on  _ you _ and no one else,  _ six times _ , when it’s put above a door that everyone uses, you start to get ticked off and yelling.

I was not a happy camper.

After what I did to him, I have a feeling that Ordulf is not going to pull that particular prank ever again.

Eventually, the most miserable three weeks of my life were  _ finaly _ over, and we spotted Engere in the distance.

The port- if you could even call it that -at Engere was so small, that it could have been mistaken for a slightly overgrown farm.

Apparently, it was.

There was a single farmhouse a minute amount of farmland, a boathouse, a single rickety boat, a general store combined with an inn, and three houses. 

The extremely small hamlet probably only had 15-20 people at  _ most _ who lived there. 

We docked the boat and helped the captain unload his goods for the hamlet.

While he was bartering with the locals the five of us snuck away into the woods, or rather, we tried to sneak, it’s kinda hard to be inconspicuous with such a small amount of people. I was positive we were spotted by at least half of them, but none of them came to ask what we were doing so we continued.

The forest was small and we were soon through it. Before I could ask if anyone knew what we were looking for, I heard wingbeats, and  Yuè and her dad flew down to meet us.

“ _ How was your trip? _ ”  Yǔzhòu asked.

“Absolutely horrible,” Raymont grumbled. “I barfed the entire time.”

“ _ That stinks, _ ”  Yuè said sympathetically.

“It did, it smelled like barf,” I agreed, “it also went all down the side of the boat, I’m sure it’ll stain.”

Cecily smiled, “poor captain.”

“I think you mean my poor nose,” Paxton said,

Ordulf tried to restrain a laugh.

“So, where is this thing we came here to find?” I asked.

“ _ Just over those hills, _ ” Yuè said pointing to the horizon. 

Raymont groaned.

“Hey, at least it’s not a whole month of walking, just a day or so right?” Cecily pointed out.

Raymont groaned again, and this time Ordulf joined him.

“Pessimists,” Paxton said as he started walking.

“Optimists,” Raymont said back and started dragging his feet.

I shook my head and started walking. Wishing that Yuè and her dad would just give us a lift.

We finaly arrived at the large cave that Yuè said could take us to the far plane of imitation. I still had no idea exactly what that was, but apparently a thing called the imitator was there, it, like its name, imitated different types of magic, and since worldpassers couldn’t make a portal to Earth, the imitator was the only thing that we knew of, that could.

We followed the smooth tunnel and it started to look less like a cave, and more like a deliberate carved out tunnel. The walls and floor changed from being worn down, commonplace rock, to smoothed out granite, so much granite, the white stone with flecks of black covered the entire tunnel. Plus the tunnel was large enough that both dragons could fit inside. 

We rounded a corner and stepped into a circular room. This room was also made entirely of granite. On the floor, a strange pattern was etched into the white and black stone. Many dots like stars were scattered around in some sort of pattern, they were connected like constellations or some sort of snowflake, the center was very starlike. There were five outliers not connected to the other dots.

Yǔzhòu strode over to one of the outlier dots and motioned us all into the room, surprisingly there was enough room for everyone.

He taped the dot with his claw. “ _ This one is imitatio, the far plane we are going to. _ ” As his claw connected with the dot it started glowing, one of the center dots started glowing as well. “ _ Here we go. _ ” 

With that, we were shoved into the crystal tunnels, falling through them much faster than usual. 


	21. Chapter 21

# 

#  Chapter 21 Eclipse

Dreamcaster 

We came out of the Crystal tunnels into a room that looked very similar to the one we had started in. except for the part where there was no elaborate dot design it was just a single dot in the center of the room.

Yǔzhòu led us out through the tunnel and I was surprised to find that we were at the base of a huge mountain. 

Yǔzhòu looked around for a few minutes and pointed to the top of the mountain. “ _ I think she’s up there. _ ”

We all groaned this time, not just Raymont and Ordulf. 

I sighed in resignation and easily found a surprisingly well-worn path. As we started walking, everyone took turns trying to get the dragons to give us a lift.

“Let me guess, there’s no chance of you two changing your minds about the no multiple passenger rule?” Paxton asked despairingly. “You could even take multiple trips.”

“ _ No. doing things yourself builds character. _ ”

“I still have some mints from the candy shop,” Ordulf said, “I’ll give them to you if you take us up, do dragons like mints?”

“ _ Tempting, _ ” Yuè said, looking at them with practiced admiration as Ordulf held them up.

“ _ Sorry no, _ ” Yǔzhòu said before Yuè could accept, but I highly doubted she would have. I had tried a similar tactic to get her to give me a pineapple but every time she acted like she was close to saying yes, but then said no wich, in turn, made me rise the bargain higher, thinking I was getting closer. She never did say yes, I now knew she had just been messing with me the entire time.

I had recently thought of a new tactic and hadn’t gotten a chance to try yet. 

I snorted, “I bet you’re not taking us up because you  _ can’t _ I bet you’re not strong enough to even take multiple trips.”

Yuè looked at me sharply. “ _ Of course we’re strong enough we are Dragons! _ ”

“Are you sure your not Wyrms?” I was telling the truth, but they didn’t know I wasn’t using worms, as in the slimy thing that ate dirt. “Because you’re acting like it.”

Yuè narrowed her eyes and breathed in deeply, I recognized the warning and realized she wasn’t going to prove her point by helping me. I now realized I should have just said ‘then prove it’ too late now.“ACK no I meant Wyrms as in Dragon! Like spelled w-y-r-m-s.”

Yǔzhòu smirked as Yuè blew out her frosty breath, there wasn’t much ice in it but it got ice flecks in my hair and froze my clothing, goosebumps appeared on my skin. “ _ Are you sure you don’t have a death wish? _ ” the ice dragon asked me ominously.

I shook my head fiercely. 

“Could you take us up now before the casualty count gets above one?” Cecily asked.

After a long five hour walk, we arrived at the top. 

“That was great! We didn’t even hit Cecily’s casualty maximum!” I said. Paxton rolled his eyes.

We emerged from the tree-covered path into an open peak. If I looked far enough into the distance I could see the edge of the world give way to nothing, given I had no idea where we were exactly it didn’t surprise me too much. 

The peak of the mountain was very hard to tell that it was in fact a peak, just the fact that there was no higher land in sight.

There was a huge, black, and blue dragon with streaks of silver lying in the clearing glaring at us as we emerged from the trees. Her horns twisted around from the back of her head to line her face, much like a goat. Her most striking feature though was her single piercing blue eye. Where her left eye would have been was an empty pit of blackness with red scars where it had been torn out.

“ _ Would it surprise you to hear that this is not the strangest group that has come searching for my eye? _ ” she said. “ _ Although I must say, it is in the top ten. _ ”

“ _ I take it that means you won’t give up the imitator willingly? _ ” Yǔzhòu asked.

“ _ My eye may be lost to me but it is still part of me. _ ”

“That makes no sense,” I said. Eclipse glared down at me.

“ _ It’s not supposed to. _ ” she turned to Yǔzhòu, “ _ if you are going to bargain, I suggest you start trying. _ ”

“ _ Sorry we’re just the guide, the humans get to bargain with you, _ ” Yǔzhòu said.

“Hey! You saw how bad we were at that on the way up!” Ordulf exclaimed.

“ _ But now you know what will  _ not _ work on a dragon, _ ” Yuè said helpfully.

“ _ I do have a grudge on you though Yǔzhòu, _ ” Eclipse said, “ _ you are the fool who made my life harder by giving the humans magic, which they can use to be very annoying in their fruitless quests for the imitator. Before that, it was much easier to make them go away. _ ”

Yǔzhòu shrugged as if he got that a lot, which he did.

Ordulf held up his mints, “would you trade for these?”

“ _ I highly doubt that a piece of candy would be worth even a quarter of my eye, both emotionally and physically. _ ”

Ordulf shrugged “it was worth a shot.”

I remembered my bargaining attempts with Yuè. it had  _ almost _ worked if only I hadn’t insulted her past the point of safety.

“Guys maybe she doesn’t want anyone to have it for another reason,” I suggested. Everyone looked at me in confusion and I resisted the urge to smile, “maybe she’s hiding something, in fact, I doubt it even works.”

Eclipse focused on me her dragon pride wounded. “ _ Of course it does! It is my EYE that makes it work! _ ”

I snorted, “sure, I bet you tell yourself that to make you feel better. In fact, if it even works, I bet it would work better without your eye.”

“ _ My eye is not the fault in this device! _ ” Eclipse scrambled around and pulled out an armguard with a large eye incased in it’s meatal, the eye was significantly smaller than Eclipses other one and I assumed she must have grown larger since it was taken from her. She popped a section of the imitator off and it showed something I did not expect to see. “ _ The fault is with the human technology they used to make it, _ ” she said smugly. 

We all stared at the empty spot where  _ batteries _ of all things were evidently meant to go, two triple-A from what I could see. I snorted again to cover up my shock, “I’m sure they had to put that there to make up for the lack of an alternate power source.” everyone else was starting to understand what I was trying to do, except Eclipse who was frantically trying to prove me wrong.

“ _ But my eye is an excellent power source! Evidently this is human error!” _

“How did humans steal your eye in the first place?” Eclipse glared down at me. “Even Before they got magic.”

“ _ They snuck up on me while I was _ sleeping _ like evil thieves. I was young and inexperienced, but even so, they did not live long after doing this to my poor eye. _ ”

I yawned, “obviously you’re more powerful now, but I still doubt this contraption works in the slightest.”

“ _ Of course it works! I told you!” _

“Have you ever seen it work?” I asked.

“ _ Well no…”  _ Eclipse was getting nervous now as if worried I was right.

“Here I have an idea, how about we try it out and return it to you once we’re satisfied,” I said. 

“ _ But what about the missing human technology? _ ” I had an idea for that already, but they didn’t know that.

“If your right then we can do without it, I bet it would be very reassuring if it works just powered on your century-old eye.” Eclipse frowned at the slight insult at being old but nodded. “But just in case…” I pulled out my sound recorder and popped the two triple-A batteries. I put my recorder back and put the batteries into the imitator. “Now we can see how good your eye actually is. Who’s first?”

Everyone stared at me in amazement, and I was sure Ordulf was about to volunteer when Yuè cleared her throat. “ _ You may not want to… _ ” she said hesitantly.

Eclipse looked up sharply, “ _ Is this about my eye! _ ”

Yuè shook her head,  _ “no great Dragon, it’s just… my mother is going to invade Earth. So it’s not really going to be safe there in about eight months. _ ”

\-----------------

authors note:

this was literally my favorite chapter to write _ever_ Kayla finally figures out her best skill is charisma, and oh poor eclipse! the powerful, awsome dragon that has a really dark backstory, taken advantage of by a 14-year-old girl! it cracks me up.

Also, the triple-A batteries, I had that planned from the very beginning, an awesome, ancient, magical device that only works with triple-A batteries. my sister told me not to, but honestly I love it.


	22. plans

# 

#  Chapter 22 plans

Eveningrider

No connection

Dreamcaster

Everyone looked at Yuè and she shrank away from our confused stares. 

“She is?” Paxton asked.

“ _ Yes, I was at the meeting. They are migrating because humans keep hunting us. _ ”

“So let me get this straight. The dragons are invading Earth in eight months, and you didn’t tell us earlier?” Cecily asked

“ _ Well to be honest I didn’t think you would get this far. _ ” Yuè defended herself. “ _ You would have given up and been safe. _ ”

“What year are they invading?” I asked wondering if it was so far in the future that I would be dead.

“ _ You are from 2005 correct? _ ”

“Yes.”

“ _ The year is not far from there, it wasn’t definite but 10-15 years after your year. _ ”

“How are they getting to Earth?” Raymont asked. “It took us a long time to find a way, do they have a way that would have been easier?”

“ _ Some dragons can make portals, but they cannot decide the definite time to arrive. It tends to gravitate towards certain years, the one Yuè is describing would be the most hospitable. _ ” Yǔzhòu explained.

“So what do we do? We still want to go home but with the dragons there it won’t be safe.”

“ _ We could go stop them or at least try, I tried talking my mom out of it but she won’t listen to me, I could go try again but I doubt she’ll change just by one conversation, _ ” Yuè explained. “ _ I’ve thought about it a lot, we could go to Earth and prepare the humans. We could go to earth and stop them once they come out of the portal, we could convince them that the humans on earth would be just as dangerous and stay with the evil they know. _ ”

“Well they  _ would _ be just as bad, they have military weapons,” Raymont said. 

“But if we go to a time in the future, would we be able to go back to our original ones?” Ordulf asked.

“ _ Because you are native to Earth, that is a possibility, _ ” Yǔzhòu confirmed.

“Then let’s not let it come to that.” Cecily said, “How about some of us stay here with the imitator and Eclipse, so if it doesn’t work, they can use it to go to earth and save it from the Dragons. Because I doubt that Eclipse would like us testing out her imitator without her there, and of course we’ll need to return it to her once we are done making sure it works.”

“ _ Yes, _ ” Eclipse said, “ _ the imitator does not leave this mountain.” _

I nodded glad that Cecily had figured out how to keep the ancient dragon happy.

“ _ Cecily, Raymont, and Paxton get to stay, _ ” Yǔzhòu said, I thought for a moment that Paxton was going to protest, but then he saw Yǔzhòus sharp teeth reflecting the sun and nodded with the other two.

That left me and Ordulf to go with the dragons, it also allowed us to be carried without breaking the dragons’ stupid no-multiple-passengers rule.

** _This part was my least favorite part, it was also very boring, so I’m going to summarize it to keep myself from getting... insane. That made no sense? Whatever._ ** \- Kayla

After a long two month trip, we arrived at the dragon-mountain, only to get yelled at by Yuès mom, and shot down. Then we barely made it out of there alive, only to take another two-month trip  _ back _ to Eclipses mountain. After that we only had half as much time as before, the previous eight months, had turned into four. And the worst part was they had already sent their scouts ahead.

None of us liked that we had wasted  _ four _ entire months. It would have been worth it if the dragon queen had even listened to us, but even when she saw her mate that she thought was dead, she still refused to believe that she should stop the migration.

“Somebody get me a pineapple!” I yelled the second we landed on the mountain. I  _ still _ hadn’t had pineapple this  _ entire _ time and I was convinced that I was going to go insane if I didn’t get any. 

“There is no pineapple in the far planes!” Cecily shouted back. I sighed it had been worth a shot.

“So, when do we go to earth?” Paxton asked. 

“ _ As soon as we can. _ ” Yuè said, “ _ but preferably in the morning. _ ”

I sighed, once we went to earth at the time that the dragons did, I wouldn’t be able to go to my time. How different would my family be in the 10-15 year difference? What would we do once it was all over? I shook myself, some of them would have a much harder time than me, especially Ordulf who was from the freaking  _ holy roman empire _ ! 

Then something occurred to me. What exactly would we do once we got to earth? Our original plan of talking the dragons out of it wouldn’t work, and it’s not like anyone on earth would believe us about dragons invading. 

That made me realize that we really were going to Earth as a last resort, we had no other ideas. Besides, Phoenix and Eventide were still missing, I had no idea if Runesight had just abandoned us once she realized this was too dangerous, or what.

I tried Dreamcasting them again and got nothing. Not the nothing that I get when someone is dead, the nothing I get when I  _ can’t _ contact them. But there was something about how the blur of what they were doing  _ looked _ , that made me wonder if they were even on Magicae.


	23. the year 2020

# 

#  Inbetween

flamebird

Runesight made the portal, turned out she had just enough magic to open a small one so she could go back to Magicae. She stepped through the portal and once she was gone, a different person tumbled out. 

I looked at her in shock, gray-blue eyes, dark brown hair up in a ponytail, and a shocked expression on her face. The familiar face stopped me from doing the sensible thing and shoving her through the portal to keep her from getting trapped there.

The portal closed.

#  Part 4 Earth

##  Chapter 23 the year 2020

Dreamcaster

We came out of the portal to Earth into the chilly winter air. The streets were abandoned and I could see hundreds of buildings burned to the ground. I very much hoped it was just a normal house fire that got out of control.

Yuè lifted her snout to the air and shook her head, “ _ that is the sent of Dragonfire. _ ”

“Are we too late?” Cecily asked as she examined the ash.

“ _ From what I can tell, this is from the scouts that were sent ahead, _ ” Yǔzhòu said.

“So what year  _ is _ it?” Paxton asked

“ _ I think it’s 2020,”  _ Yǔzhòu said bitterly, “ _ a time travelers nightmare, well at least for the humans. _ ”

“ _ Wow, really? That’s strangely fitting for mom to invade  _ this _ year. _ ” Yuè said, “ _ as I understand it was one of the worst years for Earth. _ ”

I blinked, it was strange for someone to refer to something in the future as if it had happened a long time ago. “What happened?” I asked

“ _ Oh, lot’s of things. I’m sure you’ll find out. _ ” Yuè said, “ _ anyways, we need to find out what to do to keep the dragons from migrating. _ ”

“Shouldn’t we search for survivors?” Cecily asked. “I mean, this whole town was burned down, and I highly doubt there  _ wouldn’t  _ be survivors.”

I nearly slapped myself, why hadn’t I thought of that? I immediately started searching through the ash of a nearby house. 

“Um, I don’t think there would be any people hiding under such a small amount of ash…” ordulf pointed out.

“Hey! I’m looking for food!” I said, “and/or survivors, whichever comes first, I mean, what have you been eating for the past four months? If we find a can of beans or better yet a can of  _ pineapple _ we’ll be set for a bit.”

“ _ Oh that’s what this is about, it’s just the pineapple,” _ Yuè said in exasperation. 

“Hey! I haven’t had any in _almost nine_ _months._” I said. “In my defense, I asked for it _a lot.”_ I continued searching through the ash. I grumbled and decided this wasn’t a great place to search. 

I went to one of the houses with their floors collapsed into the basement and searched there. 

I couldn’t find any food so I moved on to the next house, and the next, and the next. People started joining me but we found nothing. 

After the tenth house, we were getting tired of searching through ash, and it was starting to get dark. So we set up camp. We used tents and sleeping bags from magicae.

In the morning we continued searching, but gave up after the fifth house, there was no food in any of the houses we checked we were getting hungry and we couldn’t find any survivors even though chances of no one surviving were pretty low. These are humans we were talking about, we are a very resilient species.

Then after an hour of shouting for survivors that were nowhere to be found, we started our journey onward.

Some of the vehicles were salvageable, meaning unexploded, and we were able to find a small car with some gas. Ordulf wasn’t too sure about trusting Cecily to drive, for valid reasons, he had never been in a car, and Cecily had only driven cars from the ’90s I was no help on that front, being just barely young enough to never have learned how to drive, and I didn’t really want to find out how many things I would run into if someone decided to turn this into a driving lesson. 

It made me wish Cada was still with us. Thinking about that opened up a lot of unnecessary guilt, and time travel was a thing that no one really tried to explain to me, but if that could have helped, we would have done it, so I was forced to push down my guilt telling myself there was nothing I could have done, and got in the car that Cecily was already starting like she was a pro.

Wich I sincerely doubted she was. We all crammed in, I had to teach Raymont and Ordulf how the ‘complicated’ seat belts worked, and it took those of us in the back seat a full ten minutes to find all the buckles for the seatbelts, I also had the unfortunate luck to wind up in the  _ middle _ of the backseat, on the hump, because of some nonsense about me being the only one who would fit.

I mean  _ seriously _ Ordulf was like barely five feet tall! Meanwhile, my head kept bumping on the ceiling because I was on the  _ hump _ of the backseat.

The curses of the back seat.

I was right about Cecily’s driving skills though. Apparently she had minimal driving lessons or experience, Paxton offered to take the wheel a few times, evidently being scared for his life, but Cecily refused to give it up. 

We did, however, make good miles, the dragons flew overhead being supremely unhelpful about Cecily’s domination of the wheel, and continued ignoring me every time I shouted at them to FINDMESOMEFREAKINGPINEAPPLE!!! Or else I would GO INSANE!!! I  _ really _ needed some pineapple, or at least that’s what I wanted everyone to believe, then I might actually get some.

After around a few hours of driving, I wanted to get out of there after being crammed in between two teenage boys for six hours, with nothing to do but play truth or dare, and there weren’t many good dares that any of us could think of, other than  _ take the hump next time. _ So we were all lined up for taking the hump certain days.

But Raymont turned out to be  _ really _ good at coming up with other dares, so after a few rounds when the hump train got full, new variables were put in place, like someone having to jump on top of the tiny car at the next stop and sing the most embarrassing song they could think of, at the top of their lungs. Of course, I got roped into that one and had to sing  _ the song that never ends _ the second we got out of the car, which was kind of worth it because I was no longer wedged in-between Ordulf and Raymont.

And of course, while I was up on the car singing:

_ It’s the song that never ends! _

_ It keeps going on and on my friends! _

_ Some people just started singing it! Not knowing what it was! _

_ And they’ll continue singing it forever just because! _

_ It’s the song that never ends! _

And it’s supposed to keep repeating, but at that point, I had spotted it in the distance, a large, dome-like shape.

“I think there’s a group of survivors or something over there.” I pointed it out. Because it really did look like something designed to keep flying predators out.


	24. Clatterdome

#  Chapter 24 clatterdome

Dreamcaster

After seeing the dome thing in the distance, we all scrapped the idea of staying there for the night, we all unanimously agreed to leave the dragons there so they wouldn’t get shot, and go check it out.

Two  _ hours _ later, we found the dome thing. Wich turned out to be a creative heap of random fencing material slathered with fireproofing and shaped into a dome above the huge building. The building looked like it used to be a mall, it was in the middle of the ruins of the shopping district and nearly untouched by the fire. Plus if they had been smart enough to fireproof the dome/fence thing, then they would have fireproofed the mall as well.

We closed the distance between the structure and us and the survivors inside seemed like they noticed us, because they started opening the gate, and running around like fools probably to spread the news. 

Once we got to the gate, Cecily opened her window (after lots of trial and error) and a young man greeted us.

“Hello there! Welcome to Clatterdome!” I nearly laughed but managed to keep a straight face, I mean really, Clatterdome?

I could see the others struggling with the name, Cecily nodded at him politely though, and asked if we could stay for a few days.

“Of course! You’re welcome to stay forever if you put in some work,” he pointed out, 

“No sorry, just a few days.” Cecily insisted

“Where else would you go? I know I’ve heard of other strongholds, or whatever they decide to call themselves, but they’re days away, and an encounter with a dragon would make it a suicide journey.”

“Well then, good thing we’re not forcing you to come,” I added.

The man shook his head and motioned us to drive forwards. “Let’s get you registered into our chores list.” he paused and looked at us each in suspicion, “none of you are shifters, correct?” 

“And a shifter is?” Cecily asked.

“Someone who turns into a dragon,” he said with a straight face.

Cecily burst into giggles, “are you sure that’s a thing?” she asked once she had caught her breath.

“Yes.”

“Well none of us do that,” she said reassuringly.

He nodded and continued motioning us forward, and Cecily followed where he was leading.

He led us to a place to park our car, and we all piled out. Then he led us on a tour of Clatterdome. 

It was indeed something that had been mall, and each of the stores was turned into a bedroom, storage room, or professional base depending on the size of the store. All the other rooms had either been closets before or offices or some other room that was often in stores. The bathrooms had always been bathrooms, and apparently, after lots of trial and error, they had been able to get the water running. 

Also apparently day after day they were making the dome stronger and adding more fireproofing. 

The big huge halls of the mall were turned into training areas and survival tip-sharing places, so people would be able to go off on their own if they needed to, not that anyone in clatterdome had any wish to leave. Besides us of course, but everyone at Clatterdome was convinced that we were crazy.

After the tour, he took us to a desk to register for chores. 

“What are your names, ages, and birthdays?” the lady asked us.

“Raymont Mcloughlin 17 years, July 8th”

“Paxton Garvey 15, and my birthday’s January 26th.”

“Kayla Ventura I’m 14, and uh, February 17th.”

“Cecily Hungile, 18, December 3rd.”

“I’m Ordulf Spitzer, I’m 14, and my birthday is uh… July 25th.”

The lady nodded and wrote it all down, she even had to ask how to spell Ordulfs name, which was kinda hilarious because I had been wanting to know for a while. 

After getting registered into the chores, we were led to the completely unused guest rooms that I didn’t even know why they bothered having, who did they expect to have as guests? It’s not like they knew we would come. 

The guest rooms weren’t that big and they must have at one point been janitor closets. They had shoved a bunk bed in several of these closets that happened to be close together, and called them guest rooms.

It was a small miracle that any of the room could be walked in, although they were small bunkbeds, and the room was fairly large for a janitor closet, so there was a small amount of space in between the door and the bed when the door was closed, I felt  _ very _ claustrophobic, even though I was pretty sure I hadn’t had problems with claustrophobia before. To get to the beds you had to climb onto the end because the very  _ very _ narrow strip of the uncovered floor beside the bed was not suitable for walking. 

I vaguely wondered where they expected us to keep our things as we scrutinized the other two guest rooms they had. They were all pretty much the same. 

Cecily opted for the slightly bigger one, dragging me along as her roommate, and left the boys to fend for themselves.

“I have no idea where they expect us to put anything, but I suppose they are guest rooms for a reason, maybe they don’t want us to get attached?” Cecily shrugged and I watched as the simple gesture got her wings hidden under her shirt to make themselves known. 

It wasn’t a very practical way to hide them since the wings also had to be shoved down her pants because of how long they were. But panicking survivors was the last thing we wanted, so the wings stayed hidden, Paxtons wings as well.

“Maybe, they just didn’t know what else to do with the rooms?” I suggested, “it’s not like they expected anyone to use them.”

“Well, we’re using them now, I bet they didn’t expect us to not stay either, maybe they should learn how to expect the unexpected.”

“Like us?” 

Cecily grinned, “exactly, this entire adventure has been unexpected, and we’re still just rolling with it, imagine what we could accomplish if we actually understood what we were doing.” 


	25. to give a dreamscaper a pineapple

#  Chapter 25 to give a Dreamscaper a pineapple

Dreamcaster

“Soooooo… why did we even come here again?” I asked Cecily the next morning.

She shrugged. “I don’t know, remember we were just rolling with it the entire time.” she paused in contemplation, “I suppose we don’t really  _ have _ a good reason to stay as long as we planned… I mean I was pretty sure we only came here to check on the survivors, and we did that…” 

“Let’s ask the boys if we should leave sooner than we planned, maybe they remember why we decided on three days?” I suggested. 

Cecily nodded and scooted around me in the tiny space so she could get to the door. In my distraction, I hadn’t opened it. 

Once we were at breakfast, Cecily asked the boys if they knew why we had decided on three entire days, but I wasn’t paying attention to that.

“So we can understand their uh… security, that’s the word, and understand if they need help not dying.” Ordulf said. I vaguely heard him as I stared longingly at the object that had captured my attention.

“See, I guess there  _ was _ a reason,” Cecily told me. I ignored her and she followed my gaze.

“Plus we wanted a break from the dragons.” Paxton said, not even noticing my lack of a reply “and from Kayla constantly asking them for-”

“Uh, Paxton,” Cecily said, pointing at me, “I think we have a problem.”

I continued staring at the thing wondering if it was somehow a mirage,  _ I don’t care if it is, _ I decided, _ that beautiful fruit is  _ mine _ now _ . “ ** _PINEAPPLE!!!_ ** ” I yelled running towards the spiky yellow fruit that was sitting innocently beside the serving area. Everyone in the room went silent as they watched me steal the heavenly fruit. 

It must have been set there by a cook to show how awesome they were by owning a pineapple. Too bad for them, it was mine now. I had no idea how I hadn’t seen it earlier, but I grabbed it in my arms and ran off before anyone could even attempt to stop me.

Peacekeeper

My ears were ringing from Kayla’s shout. We’d all assumed that magic didn’t work on Earth, because no one on earth  _ had _ magic. But Kayla’s shout had been inhumanly loud, combined with the fact that dreamscapers were known to control sound had me convinced that some magic  _ did _ work on earth. Too bad, it had to be the kind that made the crazy pineapple lover 10 times harder to ignore. 

I rubbed my ears and winced as Kayla ran from the room with her new trophy. No one tried to stop her, or go after her, the supersonic quality of her shout had everyone in the room distracted by their ringing ears. 

I could tell that Cecily said something because her lips were moving, but the aftermath of Kayla’s pineapple theft prevented me from hearing her.

“What?” I asked. I couldn’t hear myself but I could feel my throat vibrating.

Cecily said it again and ran out of the room after the crazy pineapple lover.

I shook my head in confusion and after a while, the ringing in my ears abated just in time for Cecily to return with Kayla who was happily munching on her newly cut pineapple. She had the top of the pineapple, the part with the leaves clenched in one hand, she saw me looking at it, wondering why she didn’t just throw it away, and she grinned.

“I heard somewhere that if you plant the top of a pineapple another one will grow!” she said excitedly, she shoved another slice of the fruit onto her mouth and happily licked the juice from her fingers. “I’ll have to plant it soon, so Cecily said she would look for a bowl or something to plant it in so we can take it with us!”

I shook my head as Kayla munched on another slice, sometimes it was like Kayla had multiple personality disorder, one moment she was serious as can be, the next she was a crazy goofball, and the next she was a pineapple stealing maniac. But she was mostly the same person all the time, so maybe she was just messing with us. 

I examined Kayla’s face and wondered how this little strange goofball had taken down the most powerful dragon  _ ever _ with only words, but still couldn’t get anyone to give her some pineapple without stealing it herself.

Dreamcaster

It was so great to see Yuè’s face two days later when she found out I had gotten my hands on an entire pineapple. It had also been great when the people at clatterdome had practically shoved us out the door the second they could, it was hilarious how desperate they had been to get me away from them. 

It occurred to me that it was probably a combination of the pineapple incident and the incident that I will forever call ‘the great clatterdome itch-fest’ it had been surprisingly easy to get Ordulf to help me with that one, making poison ivy grow in all the bathrooms. Except ours of course, but that had probably been what gave us away.

After the pineapple incident, Paxton had shared that I had used magic, and it didn’t take long for us to find out that Ordulfs nature skills were still working. I had no idea what the people of clatterdome had thought of the great clatterdome itch-fest, but the fact that they practically begged us to leave should have clued me in.

The day after our reunion with the dragons, we were once again, in the car being bored. I held my pineapple plant on my lap and was busy trying to convince Ordulf who had the hump, to make it grow faster, while everyone else played truth or dare, most everyone chose truth at this point, having run out of dare ideas, even Raymont who at first seemed to be a never-ending font of dare ideas was running dry. 

Sadly that’s when we ran out of gas. Clatterdome had given us extra, presumably to be sure we wouldn’t return, but alas it had not been enough. We were stuck walking because of the annoying rules of dragons.


	26. bird girl stalks you

#  Chapter 26 bird girl stalks you

Luna

I was curled up under some rubble with my stash of food and books trying to read my worries away. It wasn’t working very well.

My food would only last so long, and I only had six books. I had read them all already, and I was busy trying to procrastinate accepting the fact that nothing was the same. 

As I said before, It wasn’t working at all.

A few hours later after falling out of storyland for the 3rd time, I decided I needed to do  _ something _ . I stood up and felt it. 

My heart skipped a beat, and what I felt was gone again. 

It was probably some hallucination or something. I tried to tell myself.

I probably was going insane. 

But a small part of me wondered if that flicker of feeling was real.

I shook myself and sat back down trying to get lost in my story, and failing when I felt the glimmer of  _ feeling _ again.

I stood up again the second I felt it, put my books and snacks into my backpack, and bolted to where the feeling was coming from. I couldn’t stay at that pace for long, but the feeling stayed longer this time, the long year and a half without it had been torture, and my hopes rose as I sprinted in its direction, but fell again as the feeling dissipated yet again. 

I continued running, the feeling was staying longer and getting stronger with every step. If I was going insane then I would do it  _ doing _ something. If he was out there, I would find him.

I got tired quickly, I wasn’t the fittest person around, and it was a wonder I survived the dragon-apocalypse, but that might have also been because I had been hiding in the library basement from my mom at the time.

I continued traveling as fast as I could, the pull was so wonderful and it had been gone for so long that I was afraid it would disappear if I didn’t get to him  _ right then _ .

I was so focused on following the pull of feeling, that I barely noticed movement from the corner of my eye, but once I did, I saw a girl with dark skin hovering in the air looking at me in shock. It took me a moment to realize she was flying, and that she had wings.

After I noticed that detail, I started running faster towards the feeling pull. The sun was high in the sky and I could tell that the bird girl was following me, she was shouting something but I was busy following the pull and didn’t try to hear her. 

I did, however, try to lose her, I ran through the ruins of the town going around corners and through buildings, but always going in the same direction, towards the pull.

Eventually, I couldn’t see her behind me anymore and I slowed down. Breathing hard. 

I kept going after the pull, and I wondered if he was doing the same, sometimes it was hard to tell how far away he was though so I didn’t know if he was moving towards me with the same urgency I was moving towards him.

There was one thought going through my mind.  _ He’d better be there. _

After an hour of walking, I stopped for my first rest and tried to get lost in my story as my legs calmed down in their thoughts of being dead.

“You know, you are  _ very  _ hard to track.” I jumped and looked back at the voice.

It was the bird girl. I quickly shoved everything back into my backpack and started going towards the pull again. I had no idea how she had wings, it wasn’t scientifically possible, but neither were dragons so my opinion of science was already very dead.

Before I could get far another girl, this one without wings stood in front of me. “Sorry to scare you, but we didn’t’ know any survivors were in the area,” she said apologetically.

“She has wings! I need to get out of here!” I shouted, in an attempt to get her to move.

“Yea she does! Cool right? But also confusing.” the girl said with a shrug.

“What?” I asked in confusion.

“Lots of things are confusing, don’t worry.”

“that even make sense!”

“A wise dragon once told me that  _ ‘it isn’t supposed to.’ _ don’t worry, I have no idea what that means either.”

“Kayla you’re scaring her.” a boy said, I turned in alarm to see a boy standing a few yards away. With another boy not far away, and a third beside the bird girl, who  _ also _ had wings.

“Ahhh! What the crap is happening! Your all multiplying!” I yelled.

“Are we having a screaming contest? Also, do you have any pineapple?” the girl without wings, Kayla, asked.

“No.” I said, “just leave me alone! I’m trying to find my twin!” I shoved past Kayla and continued running towards the pull.

Dreamcaster

“Well that went well,” I commented as the survivor ran off.

“Maye it would have helped if you hadn’t been so weird at her.” Paxton pointed out. “Maybe you should tone it down.”

I nodded realizing I should probably calm my weirdness levels back to normal. I somehow hadn’t realized my normality levels were dropping so low.

I pulled them back to normal and my mindset calmed down. “So do we send one of the dragons after her, or what? Or do we follow her until she finds her twin?”

Ordulf shook his head, “we don’t know that her twin is even alive, we need to get her somewhere safe.

We all nodded at that. “So who’s the lucky winner to go get her?” Raymont asked, “do we draw straws?”

“We don’t have any straws.” I pointed out.

“Everyone who nominates Raymont say aye!” Cecily said quickly, Raymont gave her a dirty look when everyone said aye.


	27. Luna Arene

#  Chapter 27 Luna Tiffany Arene

Luna 

I continued on my fast-paced quest to find my brother. I only stopped for short moments after the incident with the bird girl, and I tried not to slow down too much but after another hour, the lack of rest caught up with me and I had to stop for longer. When no one ambushed me, I started taking longer rests.

On the third long rest, however, something  _ did _ happen.

A boy, one of the ones from whatever had happened before, came out from behind me. This group seemed to be specifically obsessed with doing that for some reason.

“Hello,” he said, which was a much better introduction than what the bird girl had done. “I’m Raymont.” he had light brown hair and a muscular build. He could have been a football player, and for all I knew, he was one.

“Uh hi,” I said, now reluctant to just up and leave because of how polite he was being. “I’m Luna, what do you want?”

“Well, I want to sit at camp while someone else convinces you to come with us, but since that’s not going to happen, I’ll have to settle for asking you to consider coming with us.”

“Sorry, I’m busy looking for my brother.”

“You could come with us and have the safety of a group. I mean, do you even know how far away from your brother you might be?” 

I shrugged in despair, “he’s my twin, I can feel him, I know he’s out there…” 

He looked at me in curiosity, “so you know where to look?” 

I nodded, “somewhere in that direction.” I pointed vaguely in the direction I had been heading. “The pull defies all logic that I can understand, but I’m not denying it’s there, the thing is, he was missing long before all of this.” I gestured at the ruins surrounding us. “Almost a whole year and a half…” I shook myself, “then the other day, I felt our link, and followed it then if faded and I assumed I was going crazy… but this morning I felt it again, and it’s getting stronger, so I know he’s still out there…” my gaze drifted back to Raymont. “You think I’m crazy don’t you.”

He shook his head, “believe it or not that is one of the less strange things I’ve heard. 

“Really?”

He nodded seriously. “Two of my friends have wings, another is basically insane and has a supersonic scream, one can turn into a bird, and I’m stuck with having flaming hands.” 

“Flaming hands?”

He nodded and held up his hand snapping his fingers. It lit on fire. “It’s kinda cool, but miss icy dragon says fire barely does anything to any type of dragon.”

I nodded wondering who ‘miss icy dragon’ was. “So the fire doesn’t hurt you?” I asked, examining his hand from all angles. 

He shook his head. “No.”

“I wonder how that works scientifically, I mean, it could be that it originates from you and that causes it to not affect you, but I’m assuming it acts like normal fire to other people, otherwise it’s just a creative illusion that doubles as a light source… I wonder, is it warm to you or does it tickle? Is your entire body immune or just your hands? Are you immune to all fire or just this kind? Why do you have this power… do you think maybe it’s from the same place as the dragons? How long have you had it?” the questions flowed out of me like a steady stream and I clamped my mouth shut, “sorry too many questions at once.”

Raymont blinked at me. “You sounded just like some kind of scientist,” he said.

My cheeks went hot, “I guess, but I still ask too many questions.”

“Why weren’t you like this about Cecily’s wings?” he asked. 

“Maybe I was too confused to properly analyze it,” I said with a shrug, “I don’t know, you should probably take me back to your friends before I make you answer all my questions.”

“I don’t mind, I can do that on the way,” he said.

By the time we were back at the place where his friends were, the sun was getting low in the sky, and I was tired of walking, he had answered all my questions about his fire, and I was surprised to find, that he was absolutely 100% sure that his power was from the same place as the dragons.

I wondered how he could be so sure but decided it was a question better asked later.

Raymont’s friends swiftly introduced themselves, and I told them who I was, Luna Arene.

My last name seemed to have thrown them off.

“Do you know Phoenix Timothy Arene?” Cecily, the bird girl, asked me. 

I nodded,  _ very _ surprised that they knew his middle name, it had been an unspoken agreement that neither of us would tell anyone either of our embarrassingly out-of-place, middle names, they would either know our middle name or our first name,  _ never _ both. “That’s my twin!” I said excitedly, “do you know where he is?” I was practically jumping up and down.

“We got separated and haven’t seen him in a few months, we looked everywhere but couldn’t find him,” Kayla explained, in a surprisingly uncrazy way.

“But you  _ have _ seen him in the past year and a half, which is more than anyone else can say! it means he probably  _ is _ alive!” I said excitedly. “Where was he when you last saw him, I need to see if he’s still there!” 

“Woa woa woa,” Raymont said. “I’m gonna have to stop you right there. The planet of Magicae, is  _ not _ somewhere you want to go on  _ purpose. _ Believe us, we were stuck there not too long ago. There is also no guarantee that he is even still there, which brings us to our only options, Kayla Dreamscapes, or you do your twin thing and we walk for who knows how long.”

I looked at him in confusion. “Planet of Magicae?” I repeated.

Raymont sighed, “okay, let me explain  _ everything _ to you.”


	28. memories

#  Chapter 28 memories

Dreamcaster

Everyone else dispersed to get ready for bed but I waited as Raymont explained everything from the magic on Magicae, which I had never really gotten a good explanation of before, to how we had gotten back on Earth.

“There are the Dreamscapers who do wind magic and sound magic and dream magic, the sizemagicians who do fire magic size magic, and sometimes telekinesis, the Mindgazers who read minds and do water magic and invisibility, the cloudwatchers who do weather magic, super strength and speed, and the ability to fly, the animalwhisperers who talk to animals, do plant magic and change into animals, the timestriders who make portals, do time magic, and rock magic.” 

I tuned the rest out and carefully lodged the information, that no one had thought to actually give me before, into my brain. It explained some things, but he forgot to mention that not everyone had all of those things when they were a certain tribe. Luna asked questions every other sentence and that slowed the progress of her explanation.

“So which tribe is my brother?” Luna asked she seemed to barely care that this was supposed to be confusing it seemed like to her this all made perfect sense and was all just part of the mysterious things of the world that she tried to understand.

“We actually don’t know. Neither does he. None of his powers match up with the tribes.”

Luna nodded as if satisfied, and laughed as Raymont recounted the _ Tim incident _ .

Eveningrider

C̶̭̖̟͊ọ̸̮͈̄͂͝n̴̩̦̠̤͗͆͂ņ̷̨̺̞̼̈́̍̈́e̶̗̼̎c̸̣͉͛ṯ̷̖̦̲̌͘͘i̶̞̹̯͓̇̄̾ȯ̶̲̻́̌͋͗n̴̯͈̘͚̦̈́-̴͎͍̜̭́̚͘g̴̻̹̍̽̓o̸͚̩̱͑̾̐̌͠n̴̨̪̈́͊ę̵͍͉̯͔͗͗-̸̤̭͌s̷̛͍͓͖̘͈͗͆̑̉ǫ̴̭̈́̿̿͘ͅm̵͎͓̫̱̗͝ȇ̷͓̺̇͜t̸͕̻̜̓͋͜h̸̬̊͒͆̌i̶̧̟̟̙͊̈́̆̅̈́ͅn̸̻̳̠̒̄̊͛g̶̳͒͌̿̆̔ ̶͓͈̺̝̗̌̀͆́ḧ̶̡͚͈͉̯́̆̿ǎ̸̺̲s̵͖͖͗͒̌ ̶̨͐g̸͚̝̱̘̈́̇͝ǫ̸̱̲̹̈́̒n̸̛͔̋̆̇e̸̠̯̠͓̤͐̔̿̚̕ ̶̹̹̮͆͝͠s̸̪̄͛o̷̢̞͍̩̞̿̾m̸̜̏ę̵͙͔̚̕͜t̶̢͊̍̑h̸̳̭̺̥̅͘ḯ̵̜̝̹n̶̺̞̽̑̐g̶̹̫͇̍̍ͅ ̷͚̝̲̮̰̀̀m̴̧̍͌͘i̵̮͈̫̙̪͘s̶̠̘͇̰̲͋ş̷̧̨͉̤̂̀̎̂ĭ̶̱͎͆̓̓͠ṅ̷̡̰̞g̵͔̻̪̩̥̔̒͛.̸̯̦̥̚͠ ̷̦̾̀̌C̵͕̭̹̟͋ọ̴̗́͛̌͝ͅn̶̬̤̞͍͋͠ǹ̵͔̪̯̬̼e̶͎̅̾̃̾c̶͇͕̈́t̴͚̩̓̐î̸͇̟̩̅ơ̵͙͕̗̥ǹ̴̰ ̸̡̢̭̀̂́̎͠ḭ̴͌̏̈́n̷̙͛̅͘̚v̶̡͈͍̒̏͝ạ̴̦̃̚l̶͙͛ĭ̶̢̭̣͎̪d̴̡̺̳̖͂̈́

Skyfall

C̶̝̝̫̙̟̒̉̉̃o̸͉̾̑̉͐n̷͈̖͚̥̓̿ͅn̴̯͑̏ę̵̧̲̇̒̑͘c̴͈͕̻͆̀̓̾͘t̸̠͕̀̂͝i̵̧̤̟͙̋̒͗o̴͈̦̞͑͆̈́̓̐ņ̴͔͎̮̂̿̆̇͜ ̷͈̀͘ŕ̴̬͆̏̈́̀ę̶̠̝̀͆͊a̶̛̯̱̣͈͆̽ḑ̷̙͚̇̾̃a̵͕̽́̋̉̒b̷̡̠̝̯͛͑͛̄ͅl̶̜̹̇̃͂͝ë̴̛͈́͌.

I looked at the boy in surprise, evidently, he had no more idea why I was there than I did.

He shook his head. “We just keep running into each other don’t we.” 

“Do we?” I asked.

“Well, do you still have Artemis?” he asked, I looked at him in confusion.

“The little blue robot that looks a bit like the Mindgazer symbol, about yea high, decided to go with you like the little traitor she is,” he prodded.

“I’m sorry, but maybe you are mistaking me for someone else.” I tried to say.

“No, your definitely Eventide,” he said, my heart skipped a few beats.  _ Eventide. Eventide. Eventide. _ My mind sang the word like a chorus as my lost name fell into place, I clutched my head, as a memory broke the surface. Of the previously blank abyss that was my mind.

_ I was outside a small cottage beside a woman in fine clothing who looked a lot like me. I was painting furiously and she was watching me in amusement. _

_ “You know, I named you after the Evening,” she commented. I looked up and met her eyes in a calculating stare. _

_ “If this is about embracing my destiny as a noble you can stop right there.” _

_ “No…” the woman who must’ve been my mother said. “I just find it interesting that you go to such lengths to capture the evening sky. I originally meant Eventide to mean something completely different, I find it strange how you have put your own meaning to it.” _

The memory ended and the boy was looking at me in concern. 

Tears burst into my eyes as I laughed with joy, I had my name back, and it fit me perfectly like the long lost puzzle-piece it was. I pulled the boy who was a stranger-but-maybe-not, into a hug, “that is it! That is my name!” I said in excitement. “I am Eventide!” 

The boy pulled away from the hug looked at me like I was crazy, he probably had no idea how much this meant to me. “Are you okay?” he asked me.

“I am better than okay! I am amazing! I am Eventide!”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes!” I said with a grin. “Thank you!”

“For what?”

“For telling me my name,” I explained.

Understanding dawned on his face, “you have amnesia.”

I cringed at the word. “Yes. but now more things make sense! I am Eventide!”

“Well if it helps you usually went by Eve, your full name is Eventide Emerson,” he said.

More pieces of the puzzle in my broken mind put themselves back together. I grinned at him. “And who are you? How do you know me?”

“I’m your boyfriend.”

“Really?” I asked looking at him closer, he had soot-black hair and a handsome face, but I kind of doubt I would have fallen for him for just that.

“No not really, I wanted to know what you would say, we are acquaintances, I’m Phoenix Arene, one of my inventions, a little blue robot that I mentioned earlier, decided to go with you, and because I wasn’t making any progress with her, I decided to let her.”

“Does that mean you  _ want _ to be my boyfriend?” I asked him, still focusing on that part.

His face turned red. “What? Um, maybe, I was honestly just jocking though,” he said quickly.

I examined his face for lies and was surprised to find a small voice coming from somewhere. 

I looked around, “what is that?” I asked.

“What’s what?”

“That little voice.”

“What little voice?”

I listened harder, trying to pinpoint where exactly it was coming from. “The one that-oh!” I turned to him in surprise. “I think it’s coming from you!” 

“Oh great,” he said, and the little voice said it too, and a lot of other words too as if it was trying to figure something out. “I guess that means your mindreading isn’t having any problems here.”

“I am a mind reader?!” I asked looking at him in shock, he nodded absently.

“Yea,”

After a moment of confusion, I pulled my pack off and took out the little mechanical thing he had been talking about. “Before I forget, here is the thing you asked for, it took me a bit to remember I had it in here.”

Phoenix took it and fiddled around with it, the little voice which I now recognized as his mindvoice was theorizing about various things. Finaly Phenix sighed and put it in a small bag.

“No magic here to keep her running, just like apollo.” he patted a different bag. Then stopped for a moment as something occurred to him. “I think, you lost your memory because the East wind was fighting you in your mind. Maybe there was some collateral damage, you lost your memory right after the fight, right?”

“Uh… if you mean about six months ago, then yes.” I said warily.

Phoenix nodded, “that makes me wonder if the same thing happened to it. Or at the very least, makes me wonder if…”  _ if Cada’s mind is somewhere in yours where we can save it…  _ his mind continued.  _ You were in contact when she died, and as a mindgazer, your mind is powerful enough to hold her spirit here if she had been able to seek refuge in it. But that’s all assuming she knew she could. And assuming she didn’t end up in the mind of the east wind. _

The name Cada opened up a font full of pain, guilt, and sadness inside me that I had to immediately block off. I winced. And then his mind’s words sank in. 

“You heard that didn’t you, did it cause any flashbacks?” phoenix asked. 

I nodded. “Yes, it did… You think we can get her back?”

“I think there is a strong possibility that she knew she could hide in your mind, she was one of the most experienced people with magic that I ever knew. We just need to find out if she’s in there. And find a way to get her out.”


	29. the mind of a mindgazer

#  Chapter 29 the mind of a Mindgazer

Eveningrider

R̵͈̎̍̓ę̸̲̫̟̌͒̔ͅċ̷̡̥̮͍͂͘͜o̶̖̥̘̩͂̆͜ṉ̸̦̓̿̓͠n̴̟̥̺̙̦͋́̇͗̈́ë̶̱́̈́̌̀͝ͅc̶̗̥͎͋t̵͈̝͂ȅ̴͔̾̓͆̓d̷̰͍̝̬̰̾̓̿͗

After an hour or so of intense conversation with Phoenix, I thought I might understand most of what I needed to do to see if someone was hiding in my mind.

“So what do we do after I get her out, if she is in there?” 

Phoenix started looking uncomfortable, “you’ll see, but it’s something only I can do.”

I nodded knowing he was hiding something, but I didn’t try to listen to his mind to find out what, I just had to trust that he would do it.

“Okay, I’ll try and see if she’s in there.” I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and dove into the ocean of my mind.

I stretched out my senses in my mind, looking for something out of place, something that wasn’t from me. It was difficult because my mind was so foreign because of the amnesia. But it was so beautiful there, and it just felt  _ right _ . I thought I had found something at one point, only to realize that it was just a slightly out of place memory.

I stretched out my senses again and dove deeper into my mind, this time, traveling towards my shattered memories. It was sad there, the earlier calm and beauty of the surface was so different from the loss and sadness of my deeper layers. I wondered exactly what I had gone through for this level of sadness.

I shook myself and continued looking for anything that didn’t fit.

I dove deeper and deeper into the depths of my mind looking, searching for something that was out of place.

Dreamcaster

Turned out my Dreamscaping did not work on Earth. Not that it really surprised anyone, I just need more magic for that to work.

So we started following where Luna felt Phoenix. It was kind of hilarious when Luna found out we were traveling wiht not only one, but  _ two _ dragons. And she was just as mad at them that they wouldn’t let us ride them.

And so we traveled northwest towards Phoenix.

Eveningrider

I felt a small glimmer of something in the deepest parts of my mind. I concentrated on it and realized, It wasn’t part of me, it was hitching a ride. 

“I think I found her,” I told Phoenix as I focused on the tiny glimmer.

_ Cada!  _ I told it.

It shimmered a bit as something stirred.

_ Cada!  _ I said again.

_ Five more minutes… _ I heard it say. I looked at it in shock, that didn’t sound like Cada.

_ Cada? _

_ What do you want? I was having a brilliant dream… _

_ You are Cada? _

_ Of course, who else would I be? _

_ I do not know, you do not really sound like her. _

The glimmer shrugged as it strengthened.  _ Maybe not all of me is here, I don’t know, go away and let me sleep. _

I groaned and uprooted her as if I was shoving her out of a bed.  _ This is my mind, and you are just hiding in here. _

_ What am I supposed to do? Leave?  _

_ Yes. _

_ I’ll die, I think. _

_ No, you won’t _

_ My body is gone, now go away and let me sleep! _

I contemplated what she was saying.  _ Your acting like a spoiled little kid. _

The little spark shrugged,  _ maybe that’s the part of me that’s here. Can I sleep now? _

_ Why do you need to sleep? Our minds do not rest. That’s what dreams are, and if your body is gone then you should not need sleep. _

_ Maybe I just want to sleep then. _

_ Then you should have no problem as I kick you out of my head. _

_ Okay okay, I’ll wake up. Just don’t make me leave. _

_ Are you sure you will die if you leave? _

_ No, it’s not like I’ve done this before, it’s like math, horrible, unknown, and impossible to understand. _

_ Hey, I like math! _

_ Then you’re insane. So what do you want? _

_ One second,  _ “Phoenix, Cada is convinced that if she leaves my mind, she’ll die.”

Phoenix sighed. “I should have realized it would come to this… tell her that it will be fine because I am a Spiritweaver.” I raised an eyebrow at him. “Just do it.”

I sighed and turned my attention back to the little spark that was trying to go back to sleep without me noticing.  _ Phoenix says that it will be fine because he is a Spiritweaver. _

Cada’s spark snorted  _ you’d need at least two Spiritweavers for this. _

I was very confused but relayed the message. Phoenix sighed, “I guess we have to find my sister then.”

“You have a sister?” I asked in curiosity.

“Yes.”

“So what is a Spiritweaver?”

“An extinct tribe,” Phoenix said. “I found out that’s what I am when we were in the queen’s library, I found a really old scroll about them. And because of recent evidence, I think the plane connected to them is coming back.”

“Why?”

“Because Spiritweavers are the ones with memory magic. I have a theory that that’s what the east wind did to you. Plus the fact that I  _ shouldn’t _ be able to be a Spiritweaver unless they’re coming back.”

“So is your sister a Spiritweaver too then?” I asked.

He nodded, “if we expose her to enough magic then she will be.”

I nodded it made sense. “So how do we do that?”

He cringed, “I have no idea.”

“Well let’s go find her. Where is she?” 

He waved his hand to the south-east, “somewhere in that direction”

I nodded, “okay then, let’s go find her.”

Luna

I froze in shock and everyone behind me stopped as well. I looked over at them with joy in my eyes. “He’s coming closer! he’s going to meet us in the middle!” I started running,  _ let’s do this Phoenix, just don’t you dare tell them my middle name too. _


	30. reunion

#  Chapter 30 Reunion 

Dreamcaster

We followed Luna to where Phoenix was. We walked for four days.

Luna claimed that the pull was getting stronger, most of us were getting tired of following her though, so it was a miracle that we were able to last long enough.

Finaly we stumbled into a clearing and lo and behold, there were Phoenix and Eventide.

Once Phoenix spotted us he blinked in surprise.

“Wow. how’d you guys find each other?” he asked. Luna barreled into him with a big hug. 

“Phoenix Timothy Arene! You have no idea how long I’ve been looking for you!” she scolded him.

“Luna Tiffany Arene, why’d you have to add my middle name to that sentence?”

Luna looked at him in confusion. “They knew it already, why does it matter?”

“Because this one,” he motioned towards Eve, “forgot what it was.”

She sighed, “well then, I guess we’ll have to suffer together.”

“Your middle name is Timothy?” Eve asked Phoenix, I had no idea how she could possibly forget something like that, especially since it had caused such a hassle six months back. “Do I have a middle name?”

Phoenix shrugged, “I don’t know, you never told me, although you knew mine so I don’t see why you wouldn’t have told me, so you probably don’t.”

I looked at Eve in confusion, why would Phoenix know if she had a middle name and not her? Eve looked at me and cringed, “yea… about that…”

“Eve lost her memory,” Phoenix said bluntly. I blinked in surprise at the bluntness of his words.

“How much do you remember?” Cecily asked her.

Eve shrugged, “I have gotten a few memories back, but not much. I didn’t even know my name until a few days ago.”

Luna looked at her in curiosity, “so how’d you lose your memory?”

“Apparently, a fight with the East wind.” Eve said. “We were fighting for control of my body, and there was collateral damage.”

I examined her for changes, she looked the same as before, but behind her eyes, I could see that she was different, she seemed less guarded, less sad, more… wondering. If that made any sense.

“So what have you been up to?” Phoenix asked Luna, “I’m assuming these people explained my ‘adventures.’ to you.”

Luna shrugged. “Not much, I’ve read a lot.”

“I’m asking for things that are different than what you did before I ended up on Magicae.”

Luna smiled. “Not much was different sadly, I did read more than before though.”

Phoenix shook his head. “You’re still the same as ever.” he turned to Eve. “that’s Raymont, Paxton, Cecily, Kayla, and Ordulf,” he said as he pointed to each person.

Eve nodded, “And what of the two dragons hiding back there?” Eve asked, “their thoughts are not violent so they must be friends.”

Phoenix looked at Eve in surprise. “Dragons?”

“Oh, that’s Yuè and Yǔzhòu.” I said, “also our friends.”

“When did you become friends with a couple of dragons?” Phoenix asked me.

I shrugged, “not long after we all got separated.”

Phoenix shook his head, “wow, all I’ve done since then is have Eve fall out of a portal.”

“You did not do anything in the  _ six entire  _ months between then and way back when I lost my memory?” Eve asked him accusingly.

Phoenix shrugged, “maybe those people are just magnets for trouble, that would explain why Luna ended up with them.”

Luna shook her head. “What trouble have I ever gotten into? I just read all day and memorize facts.”

“Okay! Despite how interesting this conversation is getting!” Cecily said loudly, “we need to come up with a plan to get the dragons to  _ not _ migrate here!”

“They’re migrating here?” Luna and Phoenix asked at the same time, while Eve just looked as if she wasn’t sure if she was supposed to know that or not.

“Yes.” I said, “I guess Cecily’s right,” I sighed gustily, “we already tried talking Yuè’s mom out of it, but she’s adamant that the dragons have no better place to live.”

“Well she might be right,” Cecily said. “The humans on Magicae are getting too dangerous, and they don’t like dragons.”

“Yes, maybe, but look at what the scouts did to all the places they ‘visited’, imagine the entire world, that’s still recovering, like this. Miles and miles of burnt-out cities.” Raymont said.

I looked at the three who we had never consulted before, Luna looked like she wanted to kill all the dragons in the universe, Phoenix looked like he would happily help her, and Eve looked like she was puzzling through something.

Everyone else continued arguing, but I watched Eventide, she had come up with some great ideas in the past, even if one of them had been sneaking into the queen’s library in the first place, I knew she was a better decision-maker than half of the rest of us. Eve looked up as if someone had talked to her and I suddenly remembered that she was a mindreader. I shrugged off my unease as she met my eyes.  _ Okay _ her face seemed to say. 

She took a deep breath. “What if we let them,” she said quietly. No one heard her over the clamor of the arguing about what we could do. She looked at me nervously and I gave her an encouraging smile.

I was about to tell her to talk louder when she took a deeper breath, “Everyone!” she yelled with authority in her voice. Everyone calmed down and there was a tense few seconds as Eventide put the words together. “What if we let them.” we all looked at her in confusion. “What if we let them stay as long as we all agree to a no-killing-each-other pact. We don’t try to kill dragons as long as they don’t kill us. We would have to get the leaders of the humans to agree to it, but they are all so scared about the Dragons killing them that they might just do it.”


	31. ghosts

#  Chapter 31 ghosts

Eveningrider

“Sooooo… how is this supposed to work?” Luna asked me and Phoenix.

“Shhh!” Phoenix scolded, “I’m concentrating!” he stood with his hands held out in front of him, slowly the minutes ticked by and even slower, his right hand started glowing silver. 

I moved into the same position as Phoenix, closed my eyes as well, and tried to reach into the ever so elusive font of magic that was inside me. Eventually, I opened my eyes and found my left hand was glowing blue. Luna watched our hands with interest.

Everyone else was asleep, it was the middle of the night, and I had my doubts about this even working.

Phoenix’s hand that was not glowing grabbed my unglowing hand, and luna grabbed our glowing ones, slowly, ever so slowly, I saw the magic in our glowing hands seep into her.

It was working! Finaly the magic stopped moving from us to her and it settled. 

Luna shrieked and dropped our hands, rubbing the backs of her hands. “Ouch ouch ouch!” she blew on the backs of her hands each in turn. “So that didn’t work,” she said once she was done, though she continued rubbing that same spot. “Now what?” 

Phoenix groaned, “I have no idea. That was my only probable idea.”

My eyes drifted to the backs of Luna’s hands. “Um… Phoenix, I think we did do  _ something _ .” I pointed at her hands and she squeaked as she noticed the marks. The same one on each hand, Phoenix’s mark looked like a compass made of lines and ovals, hers looked similar but instead of four directions, it was pointing in three, the circle that made up the base of the compass was now a triangle, there was a big oval with a line through it in the center. 

And her mark was on  _ both _ hands which was not something that usually happened, it was usually just the dominant hand.

Phoenix grinned, “I guess it did work then!” he turned to me. “Come on, wake her up, and kick her out, this will be fun.”

I blinked, “are you sure? Right now?”

He nodded.

I shrugged, closed my eyes, and dove into my mind calling Cada’s name.

_ What do you want now? _

_ We got a second Spiritweaver. _

Cada groaned,  _ oh that. _

_ Come on, you can leave now. _

_ I like it here though! _

I shrugged and uprooted her.  _ You can leave of your own accord or I can force you out, either way, you are leaving. I started shoving her to the surface. _

_ Okay okay! I’ll go I guess! Your second Spiritweaver had better not do anything dumb! _

With that, Cada’s spark was gone from my mind, I opened my eyes and saw the familiar spark in front of me floating up towards the stars.

“Woa woa woa,” Phoenix said, he snapped, “come back here,” the spark obeyed and came back down. “Okay, we need to do this quickly, Luna, try and do what I do.” Luna nodded and looked at the spark in wonder.

“It’s like I can feel her life.”

Phoenix nodded in understanding. He reached forward his right hand towards the spark in between him and Luna, Luna did the same but with her left. Phoenix leaned forward and touched the spark and Luna did too. They stayed like that for almost an entire minute, eyes closed in concentration.

I could hear their minds and Cada’s mind focusing their energy on Cada’s spirit. 

Finaly they both gasped in unison and stepped back as the glowing spark formed into something it became more solid, it became stronger, less unsure of it’s belonging.  _ Better _ . The spark grew until it was the size of my chest, the large ball uncurled into the shape of a human. Its glow lessened but did not go away. 

The human shape took on the features of a girl a few years younger than me. A vibrant purple dress formed on her and short red hair sprouted from her head, her skin became covered with freckles and her eyes opened to reveal right blue irises.

The girl took in a sudden deep breath and looked at the three of us in bewilderment. She did not, however, stop floating. She was also kind of see-through.

Cada held her hand up to her face and frowned at it, she slashed her hand through the nearest person, phoenix, he flinched but her hand passed right through. 

She looked back at her hand and held it up in a commanding gesture, a moment later she was suddenly in a different place. 

“Well that still works…” she floated over to me and stepped right through me. I shivered and swatted at her as her ghostly essence flowed through me. “Mmm…” Cada said, she turned to phoenix. “Looks like I’m a ghost now. Was that what you meant to happen, or were your powers not strong enough?”

Phoenix shrugged, “well we are on Earth. Plus, it looks to me, like you are ten years younger.”

Cada looked down at herself, “wow I’m a kid again! That’s great! Now I can roleplay my favorite anime without people looking at me weird!” Cada looked up at Phoenix with glee in her eyes. “Plus, my mom’s not here to tell me no!”

Phoenix looked at her in bewilderment. “Who are you and what have you done with the overprotective responsible adult I knew so well?”

Cada shrugged. “I was like this as a kid, it must have come back.” she turned to me and Luna. “Now now, we have a memoryless Mindgazer and two Spiritweavers, out and about in the middle of the night, what are we going to do now? Get some markers and draw on everyone else’s faces while they sleep? Summon a demon? Wake them up and play run away from the ghost only to wipe their memories the next morning?”

“Woa woa, calm yourself,” Luna said. “We are not doing any of that.”

Cada examined her. “Are you saying you don’t want to do any of those things?”

Luna blinked in confusion. “Uh…”

“That’s a yes! You do want to do them, you just think it’s a bad idea.”

Phoenix snapped his fingers. “No, stop, no. Cada no.”

“Cada yes,” Cada said as she floated over to Phoenix. “Are you volunteering to help me summon the demon?'


	32. the next thing to do

#  Chapter 32 the next thing to do

Dreamcaster

We woke up the next morning to find an overly enthusiastic ghost sitting at camp, along with Eve Luna and Phoenix trying to get her under control, it was not working, to say the least.

Once we all woke up the three tired ghost-sitters explained it all to us. Everyone who had known Cada before was overjoyed that she was in fact not dead, at least mostly, but also very confused because she looked like a ten-year-old.

Then after a day of getting to know this new Cada, I was extra happy that the three who brought her back had been able to keep her from coloring our faces while we slept, for five entire hours. It took a different level of skill to prevent her from doing something like that, and a whole lot of luck to keep her entertained for that entire time.

The three ghost-sitters slept until noon once everyone else had woken up, and to repay our debts, we made sure Cada didn’t do something to them either.

After a tiring few hours of keeping the ghost entertained, we were finaly able to get some clearer answers from Eve Luna and Phoenix.

After their more in-depth explanation, Yǔzhòu scolded them about using magic they barely understood, Ordulf looked like he wanted to say something but couldn’t figure out the words, Paxton was asking them about the part where they turned Luna into a Spiritweaver, whatever that was, Cecily was being grouchy that they didn’t invite her, Raymont was silently soaking up this new knowledge, Cada was trying to steal my pineapple plant and I was busy going full out, go away you insane ghost, on her. Yuè was silent through most of the explanation.

“ _ So you think that Mutatio is coming back? _ ” Yuè asked Phoenix.

“Mutatio?” 

“ _ The plane of spirits, technology, memory, and poison, _ ” Yuè explained.

“Yes, I do,” Phoenix said. 

“ _ That would mean that the people on Magicae will start to be born Spiritweavers, and eventually the tribe will come back. And also… maybe the dragons of that type will return as well. _ ”

Phoenix looked thoughtful. “I suppose so, I never thought about the dragons of that type.”

Yǔzhòu looked intrigued at the conversation. “ _ That makes me wonder how Magicae will react to that. Or maybe he’s the one who invited Mutatio back. _ ” Yǔzhòu looked to Yuè, “ _ the ways of spirits are strange indeed. _ ”

“Are you talking about me?” Cada asked

“ _ No, a different type of spirit, _ ” Yuè explained.

I looked at the dragons in confusion. “Magicae is a he?”

Yuè nodded. “ _ Of course, the planet has a spirit just like all living things. _ ”

“Does Earth have a spirit?”

“ _ Yes, and as I understand, she was very put out when she found out Magicae had something she didn’t, magic, she had gotten used to being the planet with all the life and things that other planets could only dream of. _ ”

I smiled to myself. Must’ve been very annoying for her.

For some reason, I was barely surprised that apparently the planets had spirits. But at this point, I just rolled with it.

“So, when are we going to do the thing?” Cada asked.

“What thing?” Eve asked her.

“The thing, you know, your brilliant idea to let the dragons stay here.”

“Oh, that.” Eve said, “I do not know, I think it all depends on what should go first, we have three and a half months left to do  _ something _ before the full force of the dragons comes crashing down on the remains of the human race. We should probably work on finding human leaders to make the agreement with.” Eve said.

“Well there we go, now we have something to do,” Cada said as she happily floated through a dead tree.

“We could split up,” Cecily suggested.

“ _ Only two groups because we only have two dragons to keep you from getting eaten, _ ” Yǔzhòu said.

Eve nodded, “I’ll go with Yǔzhòu’s group, and sorry but we should probably have the twins in separate groups because you guys can tell where each other are.”

Luna and Phoenix nodded. “I’ll go with Eve,” Phoenix said.

“I’ll go with Yuè and Luna’s group,” Raymont said.

“ _ Kayla, weather you like it or not you are coming with me, _ ” Yuè warned. I shrugged and went over to their group.

“Paxton go with Yǔzhòu me and Phoenix, and Cecily can go with the other group, then we don’t have two flying people in one group,” Eve suggested. Paxton and Cecily moved to their designated groups.

“Ordulf you’re coming with us.” phoenix said, “they have more people than us and I do  _ not _ want to stay up half the night ghost-sitting ever again.”

Cada shrugged as if his accusation was perfectly well-founded, “I’ll go with them then.” I suppressed an annoyed groan. Cada had  _ better _ mellow out before too long.

“So we’re gonna split up tomorrow morning?” Cecily asked. 

Eve nodded, “everyone, get your stuff together, we will leave at first light.”

“Not actually first light though right?” Cada asked, “I want my beauty sleep.”

“I’m not even sure if you  _ do _ sleep,” Phoenix said.

“Stop ruining my fun.” Cada scolded him.

“We will want as much time as possible to gather all of the human leaders. Yes, it will be at the first light.” Eve explained. Wich would not cooperate much with my want for sleep.

“Some of us should go to clatterdome,” Cecily suggested.

“Are you volunteering?” Cada asked

Cecily shrugged, “I guess.”

“What about the other group, where are we going?” Luna asked.

Eve shrugged, “maybe you could just travel in a direction and hope to find a stronghold,”

“I thought of a flaw in this plan,” Ordulf said, so far he hadn’t said anything. “What will we do if the dragons don’t agree to this plan? Where even are they going to end up at when they get here?”

“ _ Oh, they will, my mother wants her people to e safe. They are going to the city where the scouts got here, _ ” Yuè said

“And where is that?” Paxton asked

“ _ Not far from here I think. _ ” Yuè explained, _ “We are somewhere around the middle of the united states right now, and the city they are arriving at is to the west of us. I believe the human’s call it las vegas.” _


	33. pineapple joe

#  Chapter 33 Pineapple Joe

Dreamcaster

Our group headed west towards the remains of las vegas. To our delight, we had been able to find another vehicle. I was kind of sad that I was so close to home, well not  _ close _ , but a lot closer than I had originally thought. It was still miles and miles away, up to the north. 

I was not, however, looking forward to crossing the rocky mountains. Those things would be horrible. Where we were at did tell me why it was so dang hot all day. Though the southwest course we would have to travel would not help much with the heat. Going closer to the equator was  _ not _ going to be fun. Especially with the whole, this-is-basically-a-desert thing.

I was busy guarding my pineapple plant against cada, who really wanted to touch it. While everyone else picked up Raymont’s obsession with truth or dare there were new players and a few new ideas, but it didn’t last long and we tumbled into pointing out various landmarks, like the fact that the mountains were getting closer, and the fact that we were in the middle of nowhere with no cities, demolished or otherwise, within sight.

At one point I must have fallen asleep because I woke up. The first thing I noticed was that the mountains were significantly closer. The second thing was that the sun was setting. The third was that the car had stopped, which must have been why I had woken up, and the fourth was that my pineapple plant was no longer on my lap.

I looked around frantically for my pineapple, only to see Cada with it. Somehow she could hold things, which made her more dangerous. She had gotten out of the car already and was busily doing  _ something  _ to my Pineapple. Everyone else was ignoring her, evidently just happy that she wasn’t trying to turn everyone into tacos or killing everyone with the horror that was social interaction.

I shoved my way past Raymont into the outside world where my pineapple was.

“GIVE ME MY PINEAPPLE BACK!!!” I pounced on her snatching the plant out of the air as Cada phased right through me. I tumbled to the ground, stood back up, and spun around to face the ghost all while carefully holding the plant.

Cada had her hands over her ears her face contorted in pain. I looked behind her and found everyone else was the same. The glass in the nearest window was slightly cracked. I stared as everyone recovered. I had heard that after I had stolen my precious fruit that something like this had happened, but I hadn’t quite believed it. I’d assumed that they’d been overreacting.

Apparently, I had a  _ very _ loud voice when I wanted to.

I quickly examined every inch of my precious plant and frowned when I noticed a small smiley face drawn at the base of the leaves with a black permanent marker. I looked down and saw the marker in the underbrush of the side of the road. 

I looked back at Cada who must have recovered faster than everyone else and was smiling at me. “It’s pineapple Joe now,” she said.

I shook my head. “Never steal Joe from me ever again.”

“Do you like the name? Does that mean I’m forgiven?”

“I guess,” I said. I stomped away with my newly named pineapple Joe. I went to the back of the car and started unpacking the stuff. Everyone else was almost done rubbing their ears and wincing by the time I was done taking out the tent and other stuff.

Luna and Raymont came over and helped me set up the tent while Paxton and Cada went off in search of firewood, I had a feeling we would just end up burning most of the dead/dying shrubs. Because I couldn’t see any trees.

Once we were done setting up the tent Raymont went over to help set the fire using his fire skills we were able to light up the shrubs and pile a lot more in every two minutes when the pathetic excuse for firewood burnt to its maximum capacity. We were able to cook our potatoes that we had looted from a mostly unburnt garden a week or so ago. 

The next morning we all shuffled around in the minivan, half of us calling shotgun and eventually Luna deciding that Raymont deserved the front seat. We all agreed because she was the driver and therefore was also the tiebreaker. 

After another tiring day of driving where I diligently stayed awake, we passed into the rocky mountains.

And then we ran out of gas.

Well if the Mormon pioneers could walk through the rocky mountains into the Utah valley without all of them dying then we could too. Plus we had a road. 

Sadly though, it was the middle of winter, and even though there wasn’t any snow on the ground at the moment that didn’t mean that it would stay that way for long.

“OH COME ON! we have to walk  _ again! _ ” Raymont exclaimed.

“ _ Look on the bright side, _ ” Yuè said, “ _ one of you is physically incapable of freezing to death, and another can act as a human heater! _ ” Raymont swatted at her wing and she easily dodged.

“I am not a heater,” he told her.

“ _ Sure, tell yourself that. _ ”

“So who is it who can’t freeze to death?” Luna asked Yuè her voice piqued in curiosity.

“Me,” Paxton said. He made a snowflake fall from his hands like he had when I had first met him.

Luna looked at it in admiration. “Woa! You’re like Elsa!” Paxton looked confused. “You know like  _ let it go, let it go, can’t hold it back anymore!  _ Elsa, from  _ Frozen _ .”

The rest of us just looked at Luna blankly.

Realization dawned on her. “Are you all from  _ before _ Frozen? That is so strange, but honestly your lucky you missed it, it was horrible. Frozen 2 wasn’t much better.”

“What’s Frozen?” I finaly asked.

“A movie, it came out like seven years ago and all the little girls were obsessed with it,” Luna explained.

Cada looked at Luna in shock. “There’s a Frozen  _ 2 _ ?” she shook her head. “I thought Disney learned their lesson about sequels.”

“ _ I think I remember learning about that, it was one of the darker moments in human history, _ ” Yuè said.


	34. more travel

#  Chapter 34 more travel

Eveningrider

Our group moved northwest we would go in a huge curve and try and find any groups of humans that were in between there and our destination. We would explain to them about our plan and try to spread the word of it as far as possible. By the end of a week, both Clatterdome and another group of humans we encountered had agreed to mention it to any travelers, not that there were many of those yet, they also agreed that if the dragons agreed not to kill them, they wouldn’t try to kill dragons. Even though they had doubts about the dragons being intelligent.

They were very glad that we were trying to find a solution to the predicament of the world. I was, however, worried about the other countries in the world that hadn’t even seen the dragons. Most of the United States and parts of Mexico and Canada were the only places that the small scouting group had hit. 

I concluded that we would deal with that problem when it became urgent, and I had no doubts that it one day would.

The other group was focusing on making it to the place where the dragons would come out, in time. My group was focused on getting as many humans to agree to it as we could.

They were focusing on the dragon side and we were focusing on the human side, they would travel to any human groups they came across, but they were not actively seeking them out like us. Once they got there they would circle the immediate area and find humans though. We would go to the place the dragons would come out at, but we probably wouldn’t arrive there until well after the dragons migrated.

We had managed to find a vehicle with gas. It was strange and seemed so different than what I must have seen before because it did not trigger any memories. It did go  _ very _ fast, and we traveled miles every day we were on the road. Wich was a lot more than I thought should have been possible.

Dreamcaster

Yuè was being surprisingly annoying to Raymont as she continued to refer to him as the human heater, and Cada was being unusually sane. Cada’s random mood swing thew most of us off as we tried to find out why she was no longer jocking about summoning demons.

We traveled along the road, Yuè flew around a lot in search of any hidden human settlements that may have escaped the scouts’ notice, or camps of survivors, and we made what we were pretty sure, was good progress through the mountains. The road twisted and turned a lot, which made determining how close we were to the end very hard. Every so often we would round a large mountain that I could have sworn should have been just barely blocking our view of the valley, only to realize that we were still in the middle of the Rockies when we saw past it.

It was very frustrating and I couldn’t wait to be out of them, I had never had many problems with claustrophobia before but I could have sworn that the mountains were closing in on us.

We traveled for days. Almost a week and a half later, Yuè told us she could see the valley. I didn’t know how good her eyesight was so I didn’t know if it would still take us a few hours to see, but sure enough, not long later, we passed one particularly annoying mountain and walked into the Utah valley. 

We all just stood there, captivated. It was huge, and so much different from the tight spaces between the mountains. Far to the west, I could see the shorter peaks of the other side of the valley, I didn’t remember what those mountains were called, but I was not looking forward to crossing them, even though they looked miles smaller than the taller mountains we had just come out of.

But most eye-catching of all. There were no scorched buildings. Everything was untouched. It felt like we had stepped out of a nightmare and this was reality. But things were still different than normal human cities. 

I was trying to place what felt so  _ off _ about this place as we all snapped out of our captivation and raced forwards, even though it was still miles away. As Yuè left the mountains it looked as if she had flown right into a wall. She dropped out of the air and shook herself, looking at the empty air in confusion. She tried stepping forward and touched the invisible barrier. Her talon did not go through. It was like we were in an invisible box. But no one else had trouble going through it, we all tried going through and coming back and it was like normal air, but when Yuè tried to go through, it would not let her.

“ _ I have no idea how a shield maker got on Earth, but this is evidently what is protecting the valley from dragons, _ ” Yuè said as she tapped the invisible wall. 

“That’s a type of magic right?” I asked her.

Yuè nodded. “ _ It is one of the stranger magics, I have heard of cloudwatchers and Mindgazers sometimes appearing with the power. It is the only magic that I know of that works for multiple tribes, although it is  _ very _ rare. _ ”

“So it’s stopping the dragons from getting in?” Luna clarified, “I wonder who made it and how they got on Earth. That seems like a very powerful bit of magic, especially to shield an entire valley.”

“So now what do we do?” Paxton asked.

“ _ I’ll look for the weak point in the shield and guard it, you’ll have to go on without me, _ ” Yuè said. “ _ There is no way I’ll be able to get through, but I’ll watch the shield for when you come out of the valley. _ ”

I shrugged. “I guess we have no other options.” 


	35. sciath

#  Part 5 the west

##  Chapter 35 Sciath

Dreamcaster

We headed towards the cities of the valley, the beautiful, unburnt, cities. And it wasn’t long before we were inside the closest one, it must have originated further down the mountain, but as more and more houses were built they had slowly migrated up.

The road we had been following led up to the town, and merged with the streets of the city. Most people ignored us as if random people walking into town was the most normal thing ever. Most of the people were walking, evidently saving their gas for when they needed it, or they had used it all up in the past three months, it was most likely the latter.

After a few minutes of wondering how we were supposed to find the people in charge, we gave up and went back to the nearest wilderness to set up camp, we had no idea how the people there would react to us camping in the middle of their town.

I helped Paxton set up the tent as Luna started making dinner. After eating all we dared we packed everything up as the sun started setting, and we started getting ready for bed.

I was taking the bags into the tent when I heard a voice above me.

“ _ Where do you hail from? _ ” I looked up in shock to see a blue dragon staring down at me. Everyone else within sight froze and looked at him in shock.

“Uh… Wyoming.” I said hesitantly.

“ _ When you entered my shield a dragon tried to get through. Was she chasing you? _ ”

“No, she was with us, she couldn’t go through it so she’s going to meet us on the other side of the valley, we’re just passing through.”

“ _ She is on our side? _ ” he asked us in confusion.

We all nodded. “We were heading to las vegas to convince the dragon queen to not migrate here.” Raymont explained, “or at the very least make an agreement so they don’t wipe out the entire human race.”

The dragons’ eyes clouded in anger, “ _ there are  _ more _ dragons coming?”  _

We nodded, “how do you not know that?” I asked him.

“It’s complicated,” he said quietly, I looked him over in confusion, his voice no longer had that mind-boring quality of the other dragons I’d met.

“Well, what’s your name?” Cada asked, evidently accepting the fact that this dragon had a lot more going on.

“I’m Sciath.” he sighed and lay down in the cold grass. “Those dragons had better not wipe out the rest of the humans, I would never forgive myself.”

I nodded in understanding. 

“So you made the shield around the valley?” Luna asked him

“Yea,” he was silent for a moment. “If I may ask, why are you all so unafraid of me? All the humans I’ve met run away in fear, those in this valley have no idea why the dragons avoided this place, they’re just happy to be alive.”

“We have two dragon-friends, and honestly,” I told him, “after meeting the dragon queen that one time, I don’t think any dragon can scare me, though I don’t know about these four.”

Raymont looked at me in confusion, “I don’t know Yuè is pretty scary.”

I snorted, “half the time when she threatens to turn you into an ice block, it’s just because you’re extra afraid of it. She wouldn’t actually do it, she’s messing wiht you.”

“She’s still scary.”

“I don’t know, I think Yǔzhòus scarier,” Paxton said. “He can breathe fire.”

“I can breathe fire,” Raymont said.

Paxton looked at him for a bit and then asked him to prove it as if Raymont had no chance. Even though with fire magic, if he could just figure out a clever way, and it wouldn’t be that hard.

Raymont took the challenge and summoned a flame on his pointer finger, he put it up to his nose and breathed in. then he quickly moved his hand out of the way and breathed out hard with his mouth. Flames came out, and as I had previously noted, it didn’t even take much out of him.

Paxton grumbled something about turning Raymont into a snowman as he stomped away.

Sciath watched the flames in an entrancing way and Raymont chuckled at Paxton’s retreating back. Luna had already started asking Raymont questions about how his crazy version of firebreathing worked scientifically, and was very excited when she realized this probably meant that Raymont’s lungs were fireproof.

I shook my head at them as a mischievous smile crossed Cadas face. I turned back to Sciath. 

“Yeah sorry about that, so we are going to just pass through the valley and get to las vegas before the dragons migrate in… it’s three months now right?” I asked Cada. she shrugged and floated away. “In three months. So we need to quickly ask the leaders of this place if they would agree to a treaty with the dragons since it is very unlikely we’ll be able to convince them to just go back to Magicae, and then we’ll be on our way.”

Sciath looked a bit nervous but he nodded. “I uh, have a friend who can take you to them tomorrow morning, I’ll get him tonight, and he’ll take you to Salt lake tomorrow.”

I shrugged, “Okay, I guess we’ll see you in the morning.”

Sciath nodded, but he seemed a bit distracted. “Yeah, I’ll see you.”

He took off into the fading light and I watched him leave, “well,” I commented to Cada, “he’s hiding something.”

“Yes, he definitely is. I wonder what he’s so nervous about.” Cada said she shook her head, “whatever, as long as he isn’t about to stab us in the back, I’m okay with it.”


	36. Stephen

#  Chapter 36 Stephen 

Dreamcaster

We all woke up early the next morning, Paxton once again rebelled against waking up, even though he’d gotten at least eight hours during the long night. 

A young adult was waiting for us by the burnt-out campfire. He had blonde hair, bright blue eyes, and was a few inches taller than me.

“Hello,” he said after I exited the tent, I nodded at him.

“Are you the guide Sciath was talking about?” I asked.

“Yep, I’m Stephen, Sciath said you guys need to get to Salt lake.”

“Yea, how long will it take to walk there?”

He grinned at me, “we aren’t walking, I have a truck.”

  
  


Riding in a truck was so much better than the car. Cada and Paxton were forced to sit in the box, while everyone else battled over the seats in the front, we left the back window open so we could all talk as Stephen drove us through the streets. 

Very few other vehicles were being used, and the stoplights were nonexistent anymore because the power was out, so we had to be careful at the intersections, the roads were very wide there.

We drove for a good two hours before I could see the tall buildings of Salt lake city, not too far from them was the large glittering great salt lake.

After alot of waiting, we were able to talk to the guy in charge. He had no idea why the dragons were not coming into the valley, but he was willing to make a treaty with them if it meant they would never randomly decide to come to the valley and kill everyone. We did not explain why the dragons couldn’t come to the valley, that was Sciath’s secret.

After the meeting, Stephen offered to drive us out of the valley, pointing at the clouds and telling us it was probably going to snow that night, and we needed to get as far as possible. We started on our drive out of the valley at noon and made it past the shorter mountains before dinner time. 

Our next trial was the salt flats.

Stephen left us to go back to the valley, and shortly afterward, Yuè found us. Then we started walking.

And walking, and walking. We passed through a burnt down city, a surprising change in what we had gotten used to in the valley. 

After that, we walked and walked and walked, and eventually, we stopped for the night.

Stephen had been right, it snowed that night, huge flakes covered the tent, and there was at least half a foot of snow.

In the morning we emerged from our then heavily insulated tent, and proceed to decide not to keep moving until the snow melted.

Two days later, as the snow was starting to thin out, it snowed again.

We gave up on waiting and started traveling mostly south but still a bit west, towards las vegas.

What should have taken us maybe a week with our fast pace, took us a month and a half with the constantly renewing snow, I was getting very tired of the annoying weather. 

Every night our toes had frozen as we trudged through the snow, it was a miracle none of us got hypothermia, but that might have been because of Raymont’s generous gift of heat at night. 

Finaly we arrived at the ruins of las vegas.

It looked like it had been hit the hardest, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if none of the humans there had survived, especially since they had had no warning. After a bit of preparation, we circled the surrounding areas looking for camps of survivors.

Eveningrider

We traveled in our large curve, towards vegas, but taking lots of detours to inform every place we could find about the treaty we were going to try and make. We zigzagged here and there, trying to hit as many places as we could before the three months were up, the survivors sometimes gave us extra fuel and using that and the car we still had, we were able to somehow get through the snow that had started piling up without freezing to death.

We traveled in our big curve, above the valley that the others were shortcutting through, before we entered Nevada and slowly traveled in our winding way, down to las vegas. 

One of the groups gave me a sketchpad and some pencils because of how much I’d enjoyed doodling on their napkins.

I had lost count of how many survivor shelters camps and other places we passed through, but all had agreed to spread the word. Some were hesitant to let us in at first because they thought we could be bandits or something. But all of them eventually let us in and none of them told us they were not interested in the treaty we were proposing.

Finaly after lot’s of zigzagging, talking our way into strongholds, and generally trying not to freeze to death, we made it to las vegas two weeks before the dragons had planned to arrive.

The other group met us a mile or so from the city, having successfully come across every group of humans in the area.

All we had to do after that, was wait.

It was a very good way to get bored. I took out my sketchpad and a pencil as I contemplated the scenery. 


End file.
